Judge rules Citgo Petroleum owes victims nothing after 10 years of criminal pollution

[Bacchus4.0]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/05/07/1297517/-Judge-rules-Citgo-Petroleum-owes-victims-nothing-after-10-years-of-criminal-pollution#

"CITGO was convicted on two counts of operating two huge open top tanks, tanks 116 and 117, without installing the proper emission controls required by federal law at its Corpus Christi East Plant Refinery. The tanks were used as oil water separators but were not equipped with either a fixed-roof, vented to a control device or a floating-roof. Oil water separators upstream of the tanks never worked to remove the oil from the wastewater before the oil entered the tanks. CITGO learned within months after the two tanks went into operation that the upstream oil water separators did not work. "

"For nearly 10 years, CITGO removed oil from the surface of tanks with vacuum trucks and did not take the steps necessary to install proper emission control equipment to prevent the emission of volatile organic compounds, including benzene, from the tanks. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil were vacuumed from the two tanks over the years. During an unannounced inspection by Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), a ten foot layer of oil was discovered in tank 116 and a 7.5 foot layer of oil in tank 117. TCEQ determined that there was 4.5 million gallons of oil in the tanks."

Yes, even though they discovered the problem two months after installing, they knowingly disregarded safety and as a result emitted benzene, a known carcinogen, into the air, at the serious health risk of those in the community.


It took seven years for U.S. District Judge John D. Rainey to sentence the company, finally ruling in February that Citgo owed $2 million—a paltry sum next to the $1 billion prosecutors argued the company had earned from its illegal operation. Still, victims held out hope for some restitution.
On Wednesday, Rainey denied victims any restitution, including funding to pay for annual cancer screenings and other diseases that could be linked to chemical exposures. The Justice Department had requested that Citgo set up a fund to cover relocation costs, and another for victims’ future medical expenses, for a total of $30 million in restitution for victims and $25 million for the government.

[KT2000]

1. the fix is always in

when it comes to chemical exposures and health. They have been training judges for years. Chemicals do not harm people, period. If a community has many sick people and a polluter of toxic chemicals in that community, it is god's will that people are sick.