The Center for Public Integrity

Under pressure from the American Chemistry Council, a lobbying group for the plastics industry, schools officials in California edited a new environmental curriculum to include positive messages about plastic shopping bags, interviews and documents from California Watch show.

The rewritten textbooks and teachers’ guides coincided with a public relations and lobbying effort by the chemistry council to fight proposed plastic bag bans throughout the country. But despite the positive message, activists say there is no debate: Plastic bags kill marine animals, leech toxic chemicals and take an estimated 1,000 years to decompose in landfills.

In 2009, a private consultant hired by California school officials added a new section to the 11th-grade teachers’ edition textbook called “The Advantages of Plastic Shopping Bags.” The title and some of the textbook language were inserted almost verbatim from letters written by the chemistry council.

Although the curriculum includes the environmental hazards of plastic bags, the consultant also added a five-point question to a workbook asking students to list some advantages. According to the teachers’ edition, the correct answer is: “Plastic shopping bags are very convenient to use. They take less energy to manufacture than paper bags, cost less to transport, and can be reused.”

In response to the Deepwater Horizon blowout, the Department of the Interior restructured its oversight and revenue collection of oil and gas leases on federal lands. But the new setup is not problem-free. The Department is now juggling staffing problems, oversight shortcomings and low revenue collection along with the massive overhaul.

In May 2010, the Minerals Management Services, originally responsible for oversight and revenue collection for onshore and offshore oil and gas production, was split into two offices. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement would oversee offshore oil and gas activities, and the Office of Natural Resources Revenue would concentrate on royalty collection for the oil and gas produced on federal leases.

The Government Accountability Office has raised concerns about Interior’s ability to take on this reorganization while collecting oil and gas leasing revenue and performing its oversight responsibilities. Interior has experienced challenges meeting its responsibilities with oil and gas resource development while performing its other functions, like managing public lands for wildlife habitats.

Interior has had problems in the past retaining enough staff to meet oversight and management responsibilities for its operations. High turnover rates in 2010 for key oil and gas inspection and engineering positions have presented challenges for the Department to oversee oil and gas development on federal leases, potentially placing environmental safety and royalties at risk. While Interior’s reorganization includes plans to hire additional staff with expertise in oil and gas inspections and engineering, these plans have not been fully implemented and it is unclear whether Interior will be able to secure the necessary amount of staff.

In all his years as an attorney, Jan Schlichtmann has had few lawsuits so profoundly affect him as a1982 case involving eight Woburn families and a public water supply contaminated by toxic chemicals. Profiled in numerous newspaper, television and radio accounts along with the movie “A Civil Action” starring John Travolta, the lawsuit became a watershed event in environmental politics for Massachusetts and the nation.

Yet today, nearly 30 years after that landmark court case, the wells that supplied both toxic drinking water and a legacy of cancer to Woburn remain contaminated despite a $21 million cleanup effort. And no one, not even the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency which monitors the site as part of the federal Superfund program, knows whether humans are still being exposed to its witch’s brew of chemicals, federal records show.

“Woburn made people see the profound health effects that can occur from contaminated sites,” says Schlichtmann, who settled the 1982 case for $8 million. “The ugly truth is that the damage we do today will take a long time to fix.”

Woburn isn’t alone when it comes to facing “the ugly truth” hidden in its soil and water. Twenty five other Bay State communities, all home to Superfund sites, still live with a toxic legacy despite millions of dollars spent to clean them up.

From Cape Cod to the Berkshires and beyond, few communities are left untouched by the contamination. With between 3,000 and 5,000 polluted sites currently listed with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection and 40,000 others already cleaned up by that agency since 1985, the state remains a patchwork of toxicity.

An interagency committee designed to coordinate oil pollution research after the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill has not kept pace with major changes in the oil industry or tried to end duplication of effort.

An analysis by the Government Accountability Office found that the Interagency Coordinating Committee on Oil Pollution Research had not updated its research plan in 14 years and research being conducted does not reflect changes in oil production, like the increase in deep-water drilling and Arctic oil production.

The goal of the committee was to coordinate oil pollution research among federal agencies, like NOAA, Department of Energy, EPA, Coast Guard and Department of Interior’s Minerals Management Service (now the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement). The GAO found very little communication between agencies on the committee. Five of the agencies did not have a designated representative until 2010 and officials at one member agency said they had never heard of the interagency committee.

The 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion and fire led to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, raising new concerns about the effects of oil spills and triggering the GAO report.

According to the GAO, the committee did little to coordinating agency research, which was supposed to be the overarching purpose of the committee. Many of the agency officials on the committee were unaware of research priorities set in 1997 and did not use it to guide research. Instead, each agency determined its own research priorities based on its individual agency mission.

The committee still relies on its 1997 research plan, which is outdated and fails to address modern oil pollution risks. Just three years after the plan was completed, deep-water drilling surpassed shallow water drilling, but deep-water drilling is not even mentioned in the research plan.

Last fall, Iris Cross beamed into millions of homes, the friendly BP worker hailing from New Orleans who assured TV viewers that the oil giant won’t stop cleaning up the worst oil spill in U.S. history “until we make this right.”

She became the very public face of BP, a soothing contrast to former CEO Tony Heyward, whose PR gaffes cemented public opinion against the oil company.

This is not the first time Cross sought to soothe public anger from a BP disaster. One of her efforts in 2006 so angered a judge that BP was accused of jury tampering and threatened with fines and contempt charges.

Court records reviewed by the Center for Public Integrity show that Cross and her boss admitted in testimony five years ago that they signed thousands of letters to Texans aimed at polishing BP’s image — just days before jury selection was to begin in a civil trial over a 2005 BP refinery explosion that killed 15 workers and injured scores more.

The presiding judge, court transcripts show, derided the letter-writing campaign as a “stunt” clearly designed to influence jurors.

“We have a jury panel coming in today. And it would take an absolute idiot not to figure that out,” Galveston County, Texas Judge Susan E. Criss chided BP during a hearing Nov. 6, 2006 called to address the impact of the letters on jury selection.

“This is so far out of line,” Criss scolded.

BP declined to allow the Center to interview Iris Cross.

One year after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, it is still unclear how much the federal government will pay out for damages on the Gulf Coast but the government fund is edging close to the $1 billion cap.

Once the limit is reached, federal agencies will have to scramble to cover costs and individuals and businesses still hoping to receive funds will be out of luck.

The Oil Pollution Act of 1990 created a tax-funded trust to pay for oil spill cleanup and damages. The OPA fund is responsible for immediate response efforts and situations when the responsible party cannot be identified or refuses to pay damages. The Coast Guard’s National Pollution Funds Center administers the trust, and enforces a $1 billion cap per incident.

After the Deepwater Horizon explosion, BP established a separate trust for individuals and businesses that suffered damages resulting from the oil spill. Claims rejected by the BP trust or that go unpaid for 90 days may be filed with the OPA fund.

So far, the Coast Guard has obligated $629.5 million for the OPA fund for immediate response efforts, environmental damage assessments, and payment of claims rejected by the BP fund. But as the total costs against the OPA fund increase, BP claims have surged in recent months and the OPA is still reviewing more than 100,000 claims.

The OPA fund has received over 629 claims, totaling $186 million, of which 538 were denied.

Coast Guard officials told the GAO there was “significant risk the cap could be reached in fiscal year 2011 as agencies continue to conduct significant removal activities related to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill,” according to a report by the Government Accountability Office.

More than eight months after the Deepwater Horizon spill, researchers are still unable to paint an accurate picture on the amount of oil that remains in the Gulf of Mexico. Approximately 200 million gallons of oil flowed into the Gulf during the 84—day well rupture.

After the initial spill, oil on the surface of the water decreased substantially, but pockets of oil have been found by oil—response officials and scientists. According to a government report released in November interventions such as skimming and dispersants removed about 41 percent of the oil while 37 percent of the oil was naturally dispersed, evaporated or dissolved.

Researchers estimate about one-fifth of the oil released from the BP spill, 46 million gallons, remains in the Gulf, but no one knows exactly where it is. Some possibilities include oil remaining on the sea floor, mixing with sediment and sand, being ingested by oil—eating microbes, or collecting along shorelines.

Yet, the Congressional Research Service report admitted that the “estimates used to calculate percentages contain considerable uncertainty.” Accurate estimates are hindered by the Gulf’s complex ecosystem, the resources required to collect data, and varied interpretations of the results.

“Perceptions of the oil’s fate may influence congressional interest and action, with consequences for the affected stakeholders,” the report noted. If it is perceived that more oil remains and poses environmental threats, there could be continued pressure on Gulf industries. “The fraction of crude oil that is water soluble can persist for weeks to years.”