He retired from the agency on October 29, 2008.
"I took a bath and washed off the stink because I was so disgusted,"he said.
Two days later, he would become a whistleblower in his own right.
West took his complaints about the way the BP case was handled to the nonprofit organization Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). He issued a two-page statement on October 31, 2008, that said he never had a "significant environmental criminal case shut down by the political arm of the Department of Justice, nor have I had a case declined by the Department of Justice before I had been fully able to investigate the case. This is unprecedented in my experience."
"The case against BP Alaska involved a major oil company with strong political connections," West said. " We had several investigative avenues available to us that in my judgment as a veteran senior manager with the EPA Criminal Investigation Division would likely have led us to find criminal culpability on the part of a number of senior BP officials and to felonious behavior by this major corporation."
The EPA issued a statement a few days later in response to West's claims. "In the case of BP Alaska, after a robust 18-month criminal investigation, EPA, FBI and DOT, along with DOJ prosecutors, jointly concluded the corporation was liable for a negligent discharge of oil," the agency's November 3, 2008, statement said. "EPA, along with DOJ, also concluded that further investigative efforts were unlikely to be fruitful."
PEER's Executive Director Jeff Ruch filed a complaint with DOJ Inspector General Glenn Fine on November 10, 2008, asking him to probe, among other things, whether West's investigation was "prematurely closed down" and if the amount of the fines were adequate. Fine's office responded by saying the allegations leveled by PEER was a matter for the DOJ's Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), which is charged with investigating attorney misconduct. The OPR concluded federal prosecutors acted appropriately.
Last year, the DOJ filed a civil suit on behalf of the EPA against BP Exploration Alaska over the March and August 2006 two massive oil spills in Prudhoe Bay three years ago. One of the spills forced BP to shut down it's oil processing centers in the region for five days, which led to price spikes during a period of tight crude oil supplies.
The complaint, filed by the DOJ on behalf of the EPA and the Department of Transportation-Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), is seeking maximum penalties from BP, alleging the company violated federal clean air and water laws and failed to implement spill prevention technology.
The state of Alaska also sued BP for violating environmental laws, claiming it lost as much as $1 billion in revenue due to the 2006 oil spills, which resulted in 35 million barrels of oil that BP was unable to produce. The complaint said the spills along with BP's work to repair a severely corroded pipeline "significantly reduced oil production for more than two years."
Oil Spill Redux
Despite the plea agreement BP entered into, it would appear the company may still be cutting corners on safety and maintenance.
Last November, a pipeline ruptured at BP's Prudhoe Bay oil field, spilling 46,000 gallons of crude oil and water onto the North Slope, which now hovers just a notch under the top ten oil spills in the region. State officials said the rupture occurred due to a buildup of ice inside the pipeline that caused it to burst under pressure.
Criminal and civil investigations were immediately announced, led by West's former colleagues at the EPA's criminal division and the FBI.
"The (EPA) Criminal Investigation Division is
continuing to work in concert with our federal and state partners and
British Petroleum, to assess the situation associated with the November
29 [2009] rupture," said Tyler Amon, the division's acting special agent
in charge for the Northwest. "This matter is under investigation."
BP is still on probation for the March 2006 oil spill. If investigators
determine that the company failed to address any of the maintenance and
safety issues whistleblowers had told West about before and after the
2006 leak, then that would likely be a probation violation.
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