"BP, the biggest oil field operator on Alaska's North Slope, has failed to fix pervasive management and environmental safety problems and is a repeat environmental offender, federal prosecutors said in a new court filing this week."
"The federal government is seeking to revoke BP's probation on a criminal misdemeanor conviction from 2007 that arose from a huge spill in 2006. A hearing on the probation issue is set to begin Nov. 29.
BP found itself back in court after a subsequent spill in November 2009 on a pipeline near BP's Lisburne Production Center.
Prosecutors say the 2009 pipeline rupture and oil spill amounts to a new crime that violates the terms of BP's 2007 probation. The 2009 spill was 'completely predictable and absolutely preventable,' prosecutors say.
But BP says what happened in 2009 was unprecedented during its time operating such lines on the North Slope and that its probation should end."
Lisa Demer reports for the Anchorage Daily News November 15, 2011.
