Sir John’s Toxic Legacy

We don’t want to overdo the concept of “irony” on the blog. But here are a couple to make you think. Here’s the first one: BP’s retiring CEO, Sir John Browne’s, is set to walk of with a retirement pot of $140 million. Not bad eh?

We know he leaves behind chronic failures in BP in terms of safety in BP’s refineries and corrosion in its pipelines in Alaska. Now we are told that he leaves behind a terrible pollution legacy too. A new report has named a Texas refinery owned and operated by BP as the largest emitter of carcinogenic toxins in the US.

The list of polluting refineries, drawn up by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), a non-profit group, said the BP Texas City refinery was by far the largest refinery source of such emissions in 2004, the last year for which figures are available..

EIP director, Eric Schaeffer, added: “Companies like Exxon Mobil and Sunoco Companies keep reporting record profits while increasing emissions of more cancer causing chemicals from their refineries. Let’s hope oil companies invest some of that windfall in making the air around their refineries a little safer.”

Maybe BP could have invested a little of the millions owed to Sir John. But he may not be able to get his hands on the cash yet. Two American pension funds are going to court to demand that his payout be frozen. They want Browne’s pension fund to be held in a court-supervised trust while they pursue claims against him and the board of directors for environmental and worker safety issues that have beset BP.

Can you imagine if Browne’s money was not paid to him but to clean up the Texas refinery? Now that would be ironic.