<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/16/santos-whistleblower-accuses-company-of-covering-up-extent-of-australian-oil-spill-that-killed-dolphins>
"A Santos employee has sought protection from federal parliament to accuse the
Australian oil and gas company of covering up the severity of an oil spill that
killed dolphins off the northern Western Australian coast.
A statement by an anonymous whistleblower, tabled in federal parliament by the
independent senator David Pocock, described witnessing a 25,000L spill of
condensate – a light form of oil – near the Lowendal Islands in March last
year.
The statement said dead dolphins, including a pup, were found “floating in
dense sections of the oil spill” caused by a tear in a subsea hose that was
connected to an oil tanker being loaded from Santos’ Varanus Island gas plant.
Pocock also tabled photos showing oil in the water and dolphins floating
belly-up in the sea with a tanker in the background.
The whistleblower, who said sea snakes “writhed in agony” during the spill,
also said they were shocked a month later to read a public statement by Santos
in WAtoday saying the spill had caused only “negligible” harm to the
environment. The company later denied it was responsible for the dolphins’
death.
The whistleblower said the company’s environmental assessors did not arrive on
the island until a week after the incident and could not have known the real
scale of the impact.
“The tragedy of dolphin carcasses amid a kilometre-wide oil slick should be the
story,” they said. “But it’s not. The story is Santos’s subsequent cover-up and
total disregard for the values they say they hold dear, values such as
accountability and integrity.”
The whistleblower said employees raised the company’s public comments
internally, and senior Santos executives knew, or should have known, it was
acting “contrary to its internal code of conduct and values and, possibly, the
law”."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
