Village sues energy firms for climate change
By ELIZABETH BLUEMINK
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[email protected] The eroding village of Kivalina in the Northwest Arctic is suing Exxon Mobil and 23 other energy companies for damage related to global warming. The suit was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in San Francisco on behalf of the Native village's federally recognized tribe and its city government, according to lawyers for the village.
Kivalina, located on a shrinking barrier island in the Chukchi Sea, says the energy companies should pay to move the village to safer ground.
"We need to relocate now before we lose lives," said Janet Mitchell, city administrator for Kivalina, in a news release announcing the lawsuit.
The companies are contributing to global warming that is threatening to destroy the village, according to the lawsuit, which demands a jury trial. The defendants include one coal company, nine oil companies and 14 power companies. Three of the oil companies -- Exxon, BP and Conoco Phillips -- operate on Alaska's North Slope.
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In the past few years, cost estimates to relocate Kivalina to the mainland have varied between $95 million and $400 million. State and federal officials are working on plans for additional shoreline protection for Kivalina and other coastal villages threatened by erosion. There is no plan for relocating them yet. One village, Newtok, has begun relocating itself.
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Kivalina's nearly 400 residents, most of them Inupiat Eskimo, have been buffeted by severe storms in recent years. Last fall, many residents briefly evacuated Kivalina worrying that a big storm would wipe out homes and other buildings. The storm wasn't as bad as feared but it took out a chunk of the village's seawall. The lawsuit cites reports published by the U.S. Corps of Engineers and the U.S. General Accountability Office that have linked erosion in coastal areas of Alaska to climate change and rising temperatures. Sea ice forms and attaches to the coast later in the year, breaks up earlier and is less extensive and thinner, exposing the village to storm waves and surges, according to the lawsuit.
ALLEGED CONSPIRACY
Some of the companies, especially Exxon, also are liable for damages to Kivalina because they are guilty of conspiring to "create a false scientific debate" about global warming to deceive the public, according to the lawsuit.
The legal complaint details the alleged conspiracy, saying that trade associations have "formed and used front groups, fake citizens organizations and bogus scientific bodies. ... The most active in such efforts is and has been defendant Exxon Mobil," the suit claims.
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http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/327607.htmlA long shot, for sure, but anything to rattle Big Oil's cage is fine by me.
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