Hilcorp: Putting Lives in Danger

Owner Jeffery Hildebrand’s emphasis on cost-cutting collides with Alaska regulators.

Editor’s Note: This is part two of The Revelator’s months-long investigation into Hilcorp Energy. You can find part one here.

After making more than $1 billion speculating on West Texas oil and gas shale in 2011, Houston billionaire Jeffery Hildebrand turned his focus to rehabilitating Alaska’s aging oilfields in ecologically sensitive Cook Inlet and the North Slope’s fragile tundra.

It looked like a perfect fit for Hildebrand’s business strategy of redeveloping oilfields after the major companies have moved on to more lucrative prospects. Oil prices were soaring above $100 a barrel, and the state was shelling out billions in subsidies to energy producers.

A key component in Hildebrand’s business model is to slash operating costs to the bone while offering six-figure bonuses for the rank-and-file as incentive to get the work done. The model appears to have worked well when oil prices were high.

But the 2014 collapse in oil to below $50 a barrel and the company’s aggressive operating philosophy put Hilcorp Alaska in regulators’ crosshairs as the company became the most cited energy producer in the history of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

“The aggressiveness with which Hilcorp is moving forward with operations appears to be contributing to regulatory compliance issues,” the commission stated in its first formal enforcement action in April 2013, when it fined Hildebrand’s company $93,000. The fine was levied after regulators had issued a dozen violations between April and December 2012.

“Strong evidence indicates that Hilcorp has not adequately prepared its personnel for operations in compliance with AOGCC regulatory requirements,” the agency stated. “Left unaddressed and uncorrected these and similar violations will be repeated.”

The commission’s prediction of more problems with Hilcorp Alaska was on the mark.

In November 2013 the commission held what its records called an “unprecedented meeting with Hilcorp operations personnel” to “draw attention to and correct Hilcorp’s relatively high frequency of noncompliant activities.”

The violations included Hilcorp’s failure to follow approved well-drilling procedures, failure to notify the commission of well-safety tests and failure to notify the commission of changes to well-drilling plans.

The unusual meeting appears to have made little impression on Hildebrand.

In October 2014 Hilcorp Alaska narrowly escaped a disaster when fire broke out on an operating natural gas platform in Cook Inlet. Four workers were helicoptered off the Baker Platform after they were unable to put out an electrical fire that started in a heater installed in the 1960s. The fire destroyed the platform’s living quarters.

Baker Plaform fire
Hilcorp Baker Platform fire and response, October 2, 2014 (Photo/Nikiski Fire Department)

Hilcorp Alaska had another close call in September 2015 when three workers narrowly escaped death during a well-cleanout operation at its North Slope Milne Point oilfield. The oil and gas commission determined that Hilcorp’s unauthorized use of nitrogen gas during a well-rehabilitation operation resulted in a leak of nitrogen into a building where three workers were overcome by the gas and nearly died.

The commission must approve the use of nitrogen at well sites — an approval Hilcorp had not obtained. Nitrogen’s low density and high-pressure characteristics make it very useful in cleaning old oil wells of water and drilling fluids.

But nitrogen can also cause asphyxiation. All three Hilcorp employees working in a shed “lost consciousness for an unknown duration” and were saved only when a crewmember shut off nitrogen gas flowing into the building, the commission stated in an enforcement order.

“The extent and seriousness of the consequences cannot be overstated,” the commission stated in its March 2 enforcement order stemming from the incident. “Nothing but luck prevented the deaths of three workers during the clean out operation.”

Commission chair Cathy P. Foerster stated in a Nov. 12, 2015 proposed enforcement order that the Milne Point incident that nearly claimed three lives was a result of Hilcorp’s blatant mismanagement.

“The disregard for regulatory compliance is endemic to Hilcorp’s approach to its Alaska operations and virtually assured the occurrence” of the near-fatal event, she wrote. “Hilcorp’s conduct is inexcusable.”

Foerster was “unavailable” to comment for this story, a commission spokesperson stated in an email. The agency did not respond to a request to interview other commission officials about Hilcorp’s regulatory history.

After initially recommending a $720,000 fine for Hilcorp’s North Slope violations that nearly killed three of its workers, the commission ultimately fined Hilcorp $200,000 — equal to two of Hildebrand’s $100,000 bonus checks paid to each of his 1,300 employees in December 2015. The commission noted that the reduced fine came after it ordered Hilcorp to shut down four well-cleanup projects for three weeks in October 2015, costing the company a substantial amount of money.

Hilcorp Alaska has objected to the commission’s assessments of its operations, calling them “harsh” and “inflammatory,” and claims that “virtually all” of its operations are performed in full compliance, according to commission records.

Drift River
Drift River Terminal Oil Spill. Excavation activity at dig site 1, September 23, 2016. (Photo/ADEC)

Hilcorp spokeswoman Lori Nelson stated in a May 10 email that the company is working with the state to improve regulatory compliance. She cited a March 21 order from the oil commission that states “during the past twelve months, Hilcorp has taken initiatives that have improved their overall regulatory compliance.”

At the same time Hilcorp Alaska was violating state regulations, it also came under fire from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for Clean Water Act violations stemming from a February 2015 Milne Point oil spill.

The EPA alleged Hilcorp Alaska and its partner, BP, spilled nearly 10,000 gallons of crude oil and oil-mixed water onto 40,000 square feet of Arctic tundra and gravel pad. The spill resulted from a pipeline leak. Hilcorp and BP each agreed to pay a $100,000 fine to settle the violation. This is just one of a dozen EPA enforcement actions against Hilcorp nationwide since 2011.

Milne Point
Milne Point spill cleanup. Photo: Starsman-ADEC

In 2015 and 2016, Hilcorp received five warning letters from the federal Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration for an array of safety violations, including failure to inspect and test gas pipeline main valves and relief valves, failure to follow control-room management procedures and failure to accurately report pipeline flow data (2015 warning letters; 2016 warning letters).

Hilcorp’s record adds up

The spike in regulatory violations comes at the same time Hilcorp Alaska is facing mounting environmental problems.

The company’s deteriorating undersea pipelines in Cook Inlet are showing signs of systemic collapse. Two gas pipelines have failed since December. Environmental groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity (publisher of The Revelator) and Cook Inletkeeper, are demanding that state and federal regulators inspect all offshore pipelines in Cook Inlet for corrosion and other damage.

Nelson stated in her email that the company works closely with state and federal regulators to “monitor and manage Cook Inlet pipelines to ensure system integrity.”

But throughout the four months when one its undersea pipelines leaked more between 200,000 and 310,000 cubic feet a day of methane into the environmentally sensitive Cook Inlet, Hilcorp Alaska’s response was to downplay the potential of serious environmental problems and keep pumping oil.

“Hilcorp believes the samples also demonstrate that current water quality does not pose a threat to wildlife,” the company stated in March 24 press release about the methane leak.

State officials later criticized the company’s monitoring because the tests were not conducted in the actual methane plume.

When faced with the choice of immediately shutting down the methane pipeline when the leak was first discovered in late December and visually verified on Feb. 7, or keeping natural gas flowing to power two offshore oil platforms pumping $68,000 worth of oil a day (at $50/barrel), Hilcorp Alaska opted for the black gold.

Hilcorp said it needed to keep pumping oil to prevent an oil pipeline running parallel to the leaking methane pipeline from freezing and possibly rupturing. And the company stated it couldn’t fix the pipeline until the ice cleared from Cook Inlet.

“Ice conditions in the Cook Inlet prevented divers from safely accessing the pipeline following identification of the leak,” Nelson stated in her email.

Hilcorp stopped the leak coming from a half-inch crack in the 8-inch diameter pipeline with a temporary repair on April 13.

Hildebrand’s next big bet

Despite Hilcorp’s financial and infrastructure problems in Cook Inlet, Hildebrand still has big plans on Alaska’s North Slope.

Hilcorp Alaska is seeking federal permits to construct a 24-acre, artificial gravel island in 19 feet of water located five miles offshore in the Beaufort Sea to develop a massive oil reserve. The 60,000-to-70,000 barrel per day Liberty Project, which is 50 percent owned by BP, would be the nation’s first offshore oilfield in the Arctic Ocean relying entirely on federal leases.

The oil would be extracted from two federal offshore leases acquired by Shell Oil Co. in the 1990s. Hilcorp Alaska submitted a development plan in 2015 to the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy and Management. The agency is expected to release a draft “environmental impact statement” in May and hold public hearings this summer.

Hilcorp Alaska already has experience in operating the Northstar and Endicott offshore oil production islands purchased from BP in 2014. Northstar, built in 2001, is the first North Shore, manmade offshore production island. The company points to years of safe operations at four North Slope oil production islands as evidence that that the Liberty Project can be safely constructed and operated.

But Hilcorp Alaska’s history in Cook Inlet is raising red flags about the company’s ability to safely operate an offshore oil platform in the North Slope’s harsher climate. Hilcorp Alaska’s Milne Point facility has already been the site of a major oil spill and the accident that nearly claimed three lives.

“The fact that you have these high-risk, high-value operations offshore, means we need to have confidence in the people who are doing it,” says Lois Epstein, Arctic program director for the Wilderness Society. “The U.S. regulatory structure can never oversee it.”

“If Hilcorp can’t even stop a gas leak under the ice in Cook Inlet, then it has no business drilling its Liberty Project in the Arctic, where sea conditions are even more treacherous,” Miyoko Sakashita, ocean program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a release.

But that argument may not sway federal regulators, says Epstein. “BOEM doesn’t care what goes on elsewhere,” she says. “They just hide behind their own jurisdiction.”

The Bureau did not respond to repeated interview requests.

The Liberty Project, even if approved, is years away from construction and would face substantially higher construction and production costs than other domestic U.S. oil sources that could make it too expensive to build. Hilcorp spokeswoman Nelson stated the Liberty project “will require in excess of $1 billion in investment.”

Meanwhile, Alaska, in a fundamental shift, is quickly moving away from its symbiotic relationship with oil. Faced with a massive $3 to $4 billion budget deficit last year, the state took steps to sharply reduce the billions of dollars in tax breaks to encourage oil production.

Alaska’s lucrative tax breaks were the primary reason Hildebrand set up operations in Alaska in 2011. Dave Wilkins, Hilcorp Alaska senior vice president, made that point to the Alaska Senate Resources Committee in April 2016 when he urged them to keep the tax breaks in place.

“It’s also no secret that Alaska’s tax credit system and the Cook Inlet Recovery Act were key drivers in bringing Hilcorp to Alaska and in our investments to date,” Wilkins testified.

Wilkins warned the committee that eliminating the tax breaks could have dire consequences. Hilcorp Alaska, he said, “isn’t going to continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars in Alaska, especially in this price environment, when the fiscal structure continually changes.”

The legislature brushed aside the threats and eliminated tax credits for Cook Inlet.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker went one step further and slashed another $430 million in tax rebates through a line-item veto. More cuts are looming as the legislature is debating this year whether to end or reduce tax credits on the North Slope where the state reimburses 35 percent of oil company losses.

“If the legislature decides to change tax policy again, we will evaluate the economic impact to our company and adjust our spending accordingly,” Wilkins testified before the House Resources Committee on Feb. 1.

The economic outlook is not only increasingly uncertain for Hilcorp Alaska, it’s also hitting back home in Texas.

Jeffery Hildebrand’s personal wealth is taking a substantial hit in the face of the new reality of cheap oil and scaled-back subsidies.

Hildebrand’s “real time” net worth, according to Forbes, has declined from $5.9 billion in 2015 to a mere $3.9 billion as of May 21.

Coming next: We look at Hilcorp’s record in another state known for oil leaks: Louisiana.

Construction of Australia’s Largest Coal Mine Put on Hold

A planned $12.3 billion coal mine in Australia has been “deferred” for now, a major victory for climate activists and conservationists trying to protect the nearby Great Barrier Reef. The Carmichael coal mine would have reportedly created as many as 5,000 construction jobs, but a study published last week found that it would have doubled Australia’s carbon emissions. The Queensland government had offered Indian billionaire Gautam Adani a “royalties holiday” subsidy that would have saved his company hundreds of millions of dollars, making it a potentially lucrative endeavor, but growing resistance to that tax scheme seems to have paved the way for Adani to pull out—at least for now.

Hilcorp Runs Aground

Cook Inlet pipeline ruptures expose fractures in billionaire Jeffery Hildebrand’s Hilcorp Energy companies.

Houston multibillionaire Jeffery Hildebrand has a big problem brewing in Alaska, where one of his Hilcorp Energy companies has presided over two pipeline breaks in the ecologically rich Cook Inlet since December.

After decades of flying under media and public scrutiny, Hildebrand finds his Hilcorp Alaska operation in the limelight. It’s struggling to keep 50-year-old underwater pipelines in the treacherous inlet intact — and at the same time eke out a profit from a depleted oilfield.

It wasn’t supposed to turn out this way.

Hilcorp investigationWhen he began investing more than $4 billion in Alaska in 2011, oil prices were above $100 a barrel, and Alaska was handing out billions of dollars in subsidies. It was a fat time for oilmen. Now oil prices are hovering near $50, and Alaska’s beginning to slash lucrative tax credits to oil and gas producers, putting a financial squeeze on independent energy producers such as Hildebrand.

Saddled with a history of negative cash flow and a decrepit infrastructure, Hildebrand’s Hilcorp Alaska is now attracting widespread public criticism and negative press focusing on its Cook Inlet pipeline failures.

One of the ruptured underwater pipelines released between 200,000 and 300,000 cubic feet methane a day from late December until April 13, posing a threat to the endangered Cook Inlet beluga whale (Delphinapterus leucas) and other marine mammals and fish. The number of beluga whales in the region has declined from 1,300 individuals in 1979 to just 349 in 2014.

“Hilcorp knew when it purchased the (Cook Inlet) property it was buying old infrastructure and did nothing to maintain and inspect it in way that would suggest they were a good neighbor,” says Bob Shavelson, advocacy director for Cook Inletkeeper, a Homer, Alaska environmental group. “They do the bare minimum to wring profits out of here.”

A two-month Revelator investigation of Hildebrand and Hilcorp Energy reveals the 58-year-old petroleum engineer found his way to vast wealth as an energy vulture. Hildebrand became America’s 134th richest person, worth $4 billion according to Forbes (or $9.5 billion/138th richest according to Bloomberg), by rehabilitating played-out oil and gas fields after major energy companies moved on to more lucrative opportunities.

(The Revelator is published by the Center for Biological Diversity, which on Feb. 27 filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue Hilcorp Alaska under the federal Clean Water Act for violations in Alaska.)

Hildebrand deploys a well-paid, highly motivated work force using advanced technology to squeeze out more oil from fields well past their prime. He also emphasizes aggressive cost-cutting that frequently sidesteps environmental and safety regulations, state and federal regulatory records show.

Our investigation shows that Hildebrand is adept at exploiting weak regulatory oversight that is characterized by warnings, forgiveness and slap-on-the-wrist fines. There is little incentive for Hilcorp and other energy producers not to cut corners to save money.

Hildebrand’s rapid-fire investments in the volatile oil and gas industry combined with a damn-the-regulations attitude show just how quickly an energy boom can fizzle and how downward economic pressure can increase threats to the environment and workers’ safety.

A window into Hilcorp’s operations provides a peek into the likely impact of the Trump administration’s “streamlining” and eliminating regulations for energy producers. Regulatory rollbacks have been welcomed on Wall Street, where stocks rose sharply after Trump’s surprise election.

Even before that election, efforts to tighten pipeline regulatory oversite have been stymied for decades by the powerful oil and gas industry, which writes the industry standards for operating and manufacturing pipelines that are then incorporated into federal regulations, says Carl Weimer, executive director of Pipeline Safety Trust, a nonprofit citizen’s group based in Bellingham, Wash., that monitors oil and gas pipeline operations, including Hilcorp’s.

The industry’s fundamental approach, he says is to “put a pipe in the ground, wait for it to fail and then go out and fix it.”

Hilcorp’s flouting of state and federal regulations certainly has not hindered Hildebrand’s ability to raise capital needed to expand his oil, gas and pipeline empire that includes operations in Alaska, Texas, Louisiana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In fact his attitude is a plus on Wall Street, where it translates into lower costs, higher productivity and a bigger bottom line. This business philosophy has encouraged private equity firms like the Carlyle Group to invest up to $1.24 billion in Hilcorp to acquire, develop and operate onshore oil and natural gas properties in North America.

“We’re thrilled to be partnered with Hilcorp,” said Carlyle’s managing director David Albert of his firm’s December 2015 investment. Carlyle has raised an additional $2.8 billion to invest in privately run energy firms like Hildebrand’s, which have turned to private equity as commercial bank lending tightened after oil prices collapsed in late 2014.

Jeffery Hildebrand & Hilcorp Quick Facts:

Hildebrand also remains a darling in the business press, which hailed him for handing out $100,000 bonuses to most of his employees in December 2015. The $100 million-plus payout was a reward for doubling daily oil production to 150,000 barrels over the previous five years. The big-league bonuses have buffed Hilcorp’s shining star — Fortune has hailed it as one of America’s best companies to work for five years running.

The production-based bonuses may have another purpose. Industry watchdogs caution that Hilcorp’s windfall bonuses can also create a powerful incentive for employees to ignore safety and environmental regulations to facilitate profits and another big bonus.

“One of the things you could get from compensating employees that way is people may be willing to lie for you,” says Carol M. Parker, a New Mexico attorney and former Pipeline Safety Trust board member.

In an emailed response to questions submitted by The Revelator, Hilcorp spokesperson Lori Nelson stated the company “absolutely” does not believe its bonuses provide an incentive to its employees to cut corners and mislead regulators.

“Our company incentives put safety and regulatory compliance above all else,” Nelson stated in a May 10 email: “Hilcorp’s incentives drive a ground up performance delivery of safe and efficient production of domestic energy sources.”

But a pattern of deceiving regulators has apparently played out multiple times. Alaska regulators, exasperated over Hilcorp’s flagrant disregard of safety and environmental regulations, have stated in writing that the company has not been truthful in communications. In Louisiana records show a Hilcorp employee provided false information to federal regulators concerning the destruction of wetlands. (See part III in our series, coming later this week.)

The Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission sharply criticized Hilcorp for its misleading statements. In a Nov. 25, 2015 notice-of-enforcement letter concerning an incident that nearly killed three Hilcorp workers, the commission stated that Hilcorp’s “lack of candor” is “neither isolated nor innocent” since arriving in the state in 2011.

Hilcorp rapidly became one of Alaska’s largest energy companies producing 53,000 barrels of oil and 150 million cubic feet of natural gas per day from about 500 producing wells.

In doing so, Hilcorp became the most frequently cited company in the history of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, with a dozen formal enforcement actions since 2013.

Cashing in on Texas shale, Hildebrand turns to Alaska

Jeffery’s Hildebrand’s biggest payday came from speculating on the Texas Eagle Ford shale oil and gas prospect when oil prices were around $100 a barrel. Hildebrand gained control over 100,000 acres of the Eagle Ford shale belt for about $100 million. The belt extends from the Mexican border in southwest Texas into the middle of southeast Texas.

In June 2010 New York private equity firm KKR invested in Hildebrand’s Eagle Ford holdings through a new partnership called Hilcorp Resources LLC. KKR invested up to $400 million to acquire a 40 percent share of the new partnership.

A year later, with oil still hovering over $100 a barrel, Hilcorp Resources LLC sold its Eagle Ford assets, which had grown to 140,000 acres, to Marathon Oil & Gas for $3.5 billion. Moody’s Investors Services states Hildebrand’s share of the sale was $1.8 billion. Eagle Ford is now one of the nation’s leading oil and gas shale producers.

Flush with cash, Hildebrand turned his focus to Alaska’s Cook Inlet, an ecologically critical body of water extending from Anchorage 180 miles southwest to the Gulf of Alaska. Cook Inlet and the onshore areas surrounding it host the oldest oil and gas production and pipeline facilities in state, most of which were built in the 1960s.

The Cook Inlet Recovery Act enacted by the state legislature in 2010 was a key factor in Hildebrand investing in the state, according to a Hilcorp official’s 2016 testimony before that legislature. The act provided large subsidies to spur oil production that steadily declined to about 9,000 barrels per day from its 230,000 peak in 1970.

Hilcorp seized on what the Alaska Journal of Commerce called “one of the most generous” government subsidy packages in the world featuring hundreds of millions of dollars in refundable tax credits and drilling incentives. The state paid Cook Inlet producers $400 million in refundable tax credits in 2015.

Cook Inlet oil production from all producers totaled only 14,046 barrels per day in February, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. (The $400 million subsidy to produce 5,126,790 barrels of oil per year is equal to a $78/barrel subsidy.)

Hildebrand entered the Alaska market in June 2011, when Hilcorp Alaska acquired Chevron subsidiary Union Oil Co.’s production and pipeline facilities in Cook Inlet. At the time the investment appeared to fit nicely with Hildebrand’s operating strategy of purchasing aging oilfields from major oil companies and rehabilitating the production infrastructure.

Hilcorp Alaska expanded its Cook Inlet holdings in late 2012 when it purchased substantially all of Marathon’s oil and gas holdings, giving it control of 70 percent of the natural gas production in Cook Inlet. Together, Hilcorp’s Union Oil and Marathon acquisitions were valued at $879 million.

Over the next two years, Hilcorp Alaska invested an additional $1.2 billion in new drilling and production facility upgrades bringing its total investment in Cook Inlet by 2014 to more than $2.1 billion. The company drilled 50 new wells and now operates 20 oil and gas fields, including 14 offshore platforms. It also operates pipelines, storage facilities and a marine oil terminal.

Revenue from Hilcorp Alaska’s investments, however, has fallen far short of expenses. By the fall of 2014, the company was $600 million in the red, according to the Alaska Journal. Hilcorp’s projections of rapidly ramping up Cook Inlet oil production from 6,000 barrels per day to 25,000 barrels a day by 2014 fell also fell far short reaching only 12,000 to 13,000 barrels in 2015.

Cook Inlet oil production from all producers totaled only 14,046 barrels per day in February, according to the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

“With the track we’re on we still see six or seven years before payout on this, and we think we still need to invest another $1 billion to $2 billion,” Hilcorp Alaska CEO Greg Lalicker told the Alaska Journal in October 2014. His prediction was made before oil completed its dive to $50 and less.

Two years after Hilcorp Alaska began its Cook Inlet operations, Hildebrand invested heavily on the North Slope, where billions of dollars in state subsidies were also being doled out to oil producers.

In April 2014, with oil prices still over $100 a barrel, Hilcorp Alaska spent $1.25 billion to purchase two declining North Slope oilfields and 50 percent interest in two others, including the proposed offshore Liberty Project, from energy giant BP. In a risky move, Hilcorp issued $500 million in unsecured bonds to help finance the BP acquisition.

Hilcorp executed the deal right before it got caught in a major financial squeeze.

Beginning in September 2014, OPEC, led by Saudi Arabia, flooded the market and slashed oil prices in an attempt to wreck the booming U.S. oil shale industry. By January 2015 oil prices had plummeted from triple digits six months earlier to under $50 a barrel.

With Cook Inlet years out from turning a profit, the North Slope projects have only exacerbated Hilcorp’s financial problems in Alaska.

“We have a long ways to go before we’re coming anywhere close to making the money that we hoped to make when we originally made that (North Slope) investment a year and a half ago,” Hilcorp Alaska’s Greg Lalicker said during a luncheon for Alaska legislators in November 2015, according to the Petroleum News, an Anchorage weekly.

Hilcorp spokeswoman Nelson stated the company “can’t speculate on our future returns with our Alaska investments, but we continue to invest in Alaska’s energy future.”

The precipitous decline in oil prices and Hilcorp Alaska’s bleeding red ink coincides with a tsunami of regulatory violations. We’ll examine those in part two of our investigation, appearing tomorrow.

Drawdown: 100 Powerful (and Sometimes Surprising) Solutions to Global Warming

Wind and solar are key, but so are family planning and plant-based diets.

Here’s a painfully hard truth: There is no single silver bullet that will save us from the effects of climate change.

But according to a new book, there are 80 existing silver bullets — plus 20 more nascent technologies and solutions — that could work together to reverse global warming and put the planet on the path to sustainability. The top-ten list includes renewable energy solutions most of us are familiar with, such as wind and solar, but also some more unexpected strategies, including refrigeration management, reducing food waste, educating girls and family planning.

Each solution is ranked according to how much CO2 it will save, how much money it will cost and its total economic savings. Cumulatively the 80 solutions profiled in the book would save more than 1,000 gigatons of emissions and produce nearly $74 trillion in economic value between 2020 and 2050, after an initial cost of $27 trillion.

Drawdown“All our data is based on science,” says environmental entrepreneur and author Paul Hawken, editor of “Drawdown.” (The book has a bold subtitle: “The most comprehensive plan ever proposed to reverse global warming.”) Hawken and the team of researchers at his nonprofit Drawdown Project spent the past few years analyzing data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, International Energy Agency, World Bank and other institutions, plus other peer-reviewed research, to come up with their list of solutions.

It wasn’t easy, Hawken admits. “When we first started it we would go around saying, why hasn’t anybody done this?” he says. “I mean, we can Google just about anything and rank it — the biggest blogs, the most followers on Twitter. But here we have the greatest crisis human civilization has ever faced and you cannot find a list of the most substantive solutions to address global warming.”

Paul HawkenThe solutions that you can find right now on Google are what Hawken calls “proverbs” — things like walking more or buying less stuff. “No question those are very true things, but they’re not solutions and they’re not measured,” he says. “You can’t cost them. You can’t invest in them. It’s kind of like saying ‘love your mother.’ It doesn’t tell you what to do and how to do it.”

The book flips that equation, providing concrete rankings for each solution and brief examinations of how to implement each one on a global scale, all of which will be expanded upon on the Drawdown Project’s website. The list includes everything from building better cars to implementing improved rice-cultivation techniques, and from developing electric bikes to supporting indigenous people as land stewards.

“Drawdown” even includes some potentially controversial solutions, such as waste-to-energy and nuclear power, both of which the book calls “regret solutions” that could have both high value and potentially higher costs.

“Our job was to be objective,” says Hawken of the decision to include nuclear in the book. “We said we’re going to model the top 100 solutions. We’re not promoting or demoting anything. Nuclear was one that I struggled with because I think it’s just the most absurd and ridiculous way you could ever imagine to boil water.” The book notes that the new, smaller generation of nuclear power plants could change the equation, but still create a waste issue that would last for thousands of years.

Hawken says “Drawdown” isn’t the type of book you’d give to someone as a gift — although it is beautifully illustrated — but instead one that will find life in schools and universities. “Students have had it up to here with books and literature about what’s going to happen if we don’t act or don’t act sufficiently,” he says. “It’s terrifying and sort of immobilizing. Students want to know what to do. They want solutions.”

He also believes the book will find audiences among philanthropists and impact investors, as well as policymakers ranging from international bodies to city councils — in other words, people who want to know where to put their money to do the most good.

Hawken doesn’t expect “Drawdown” to have much of an impact on the policies of the Trump administration; but on the upside, he also doesn’t believe the Trump administration will have much impact on the book’s solutions.

“Two days after the election I looked at every solution one by one and thought, ‘Okay, what will happen to this solution if we have a very ignorant and obstreperous administration and Congress?’ And actually, it was like not much, really, not much at all. It almost had zero impact,” he says.

In fact, Hawken thinks President Trump may actually be good for the environment in an unexpected manner. “If anything, the election might have had a positive impact in a kind of perverse way, because people are going to maybe double down on stuff because they’re not happy with the administration,” he says. “The resistance is massive, growing, and unrelenting and will not stop until he’s out of office.”

Drawdown: The Top Ten Solutions

Refrigerant management

Wind turbines (onshore)

Reduced food waste

Plant-rich diet

Tropical forests

Educating girls

Family planning

Solar farms

Silvopasture

Rooftop solar

Climate Change is (Not) for the Birds

A new study of North American songbirds reveals an ecosystem falling out of balance.

Yet another new study illustrates the potentially deadly impact that climate change will pose for many migrating bird species.

This time around research into North American songbirds looked at how warmer springs will cause plants to grow either earlier or later than usual. It might be just a few days in either direction, but that’s enough to cause problems for nine out of 48 studied bird species, which researchers say will now have trouble finding the right insects to eat, impacting the birds’ ability to breed.

This follows research published last year which found that similar effects could be felt by hundreds of bird species across five continents.

Trump’s Border Wall Could Impact an Astonishing 10,000 Species

Many species could go extinct if the border wall is built, experts warn.

What do the bald eagle, robust cottontail, tiger salamander and Texas banded gecko have in common?

Easy: They’re all among the 841 documented vertebrate species that would be affected by the border wall proposed by President Trump. Many of those species, experts warn, would risk extinction or face severe population impacts if the wall were built.

(The Revelator is published by the Center for Biological Diversity, which has sued the Trump administration seeking better studies into the environmental impact of the border wall. The Center has also published its own report on the wall’s impact on wildlife.)

The list, put together by a team led by Dr. Gerardo J. Ceballos González of National Autonomous University of Mexico, includes 42 species of amphibians, 160 reptiles, 452 bird species and 187 mammals. Well-known species in the region include the jaguar, Sonoran pronghorn, North American river otter and black bear.

But wait — there’s more. For one thing, the list doesn’t include fish yet. For another, vertebrates represent only a tiny fraction of the total number of species living along the border between the two countries. “If we included plants, I can easily say we’re talking about 5,000 species,” Ceballos says. “Plants, fish and invertebrates, we’re probably talking about 10,000 species or even more.”

That’s no off-the-cuff assessment. More than 7,000 different species, including half of North America’s bird species, have been catalogued in the Madrean Sky Islands region of the border alone.

Even without those added species groups, the list Ceballos previewed with The Revelator is impressive — and a little scary. “To my knowledge, this is the most complete list available of species that live along the border,” Ceballos tells The Revelator. The professor and his team compiled the list by combing through the scientific data of species distributions and also traversing the entire U.S.-Mexico border, a 2,000-mile journey they accomplished over several trips totaling six months of travel.

“It’s a really amazing region,” Ceballos says of the border. “These are some very unique ecoregions. It goes from very arid to forests to tropical scrubland. I think there is no place with a border that has more ecoregions than the U.S.-Mexico border.”

Ceballos says some remote areas of the border contained so much wildlife it felt like a zoo. “In the protected areas, it’s very impressive,” he says.

Other, more accessible areas, such as Chihuahua, were the opposite. “There’s very little wildlife left,” Ceballos reports.

border wall
Rodrigo Sierra Corona. Used with permission.

New border wall construction would have a number of impacts on nearby species, most notably by cutting off their migratory routes and isolating populations from each other, limiting their genetic flow and viability. “It would make populations smaller,” Ceballos says. “It could put them on the path to become extinct.” The wall could also cut off water supplies, create flooding and cause erosion — and the roads created to build and maintain the wall would have their own environmental impacts.

Beyond its effects on the species themselves, the wall would also have a broader impact on the surrounding ecosystems, says Sergio Avila-Villegas, conservation scientist with the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum in Tucson, Ariz. “The border infrastructure — which is a broader term than ‘border wall’ — affects the connections, interactions and functions that those species provide in the ecosystems where they live,” he says. “So what’s at stake is not only a long list of species, but also the functions and services these species and their ecosystems provide.”

Ceballos says that he felt the work to compile their list left him with four important lessons. The first is that the areas that already contain a border wall illustrate its environmental consequences. “You can see a lot of erosion already there,” he points out.

Second, the areas without an existing border wall may be that way for a reason. “This is incredibly rough territory,” he says. “It would be an amazing task to put a wall on those areas, and then the impact would be huge.”

Next there’s the impact to a vertebrate species that didn’t make it onto his list: humans. “The communities around the border, sometimes they are not even Mexican or American,” he says. “They are a completely different thing, a mixture of cultures that is rather different from the two countries. Putting a wall there, you would really disrupt their social, economic and political situations.”

Finally, Ceballos says we should remember that the United States and Mexico already have a history of successful teamwork to protect wildlife. “We worked together to save the Mexican wolf, the California condor, the black-footed prairie dog, the jaguar and so on. I think one way to go is to continue that collaboration. Instead of building a wall we should sit together with groups from both sides and try and find solutions.”

He doesn’t seem to think that will happen, though. “Unfortunately, it seems to me that the political agenda in the U.S. has pushed the wall to a different level.”

That’s a shame, he says, because “the wall won’t solve anything.” It won’t help wildlife, it won’t protect the United States from illegal immigration, and it won’t solve the drug war in Mexico that has killed tens of thousands of people. “These are problems that have to be solved together,” says Ceballos.

GreenLatinos: Working Locally, Connecting Nationally

In the age of Trump, local activism matters, says GreenLatinos president Mark Magaña.

There’s an old saying that all politics is local. For Latino communities in the United States, that may be particularly true when it comes to environmental issues.

“It’s not about being a member of NRDC or Sierra Club or any of the big nationals,” Mark Magaña, founder and president of the environmental nonprofit GreenLatinos, tells The Revelator. “It’s about what they do. It’s about what their grandmother taught them to do. It’s about how they treat their air, their water, their land, how they treat their resources, reuse, repurpose what they have.”

This, Magana says, has often translated into local activism that isn’t always recognized on the national level. “It’s much more ‘my kid has asthma, my town isn’t being treated fairly, we’re getting the coal-fired power plant and the recycling plant on the other side of the railroad tracks,’” he says. “If something is happening where I am being treated with inequity, where my family is being hurt, I’m going to rise up.”

That activism, however, doesn’t always convert to big-picture issues such as climate change or the extinction of species located in faraway habitats. “A lot of our community doesn’t necessarily have the time or the priority to fight for something in the 10-thousand-foot-high level,” Magaña says. “I’m not going to be worrying about polar bears, you know?”

Local activism, meanwhile, can also come with a personal cost. Working on these local environmental issues, Magaña says, can leave local activists feeling isolated, without a broader network of peers, resources and emotional support. That can reduce their effectiveness, both in the short- and long-term.

The need to make these vital, in-person connections became evident to Magaña while he was working in the Clinton and Obama administrations and later as a lobbyist, where he was often the only Latino at various events. “Latino environmental and conservation advocates were working in silos,” he says. “We really didn’t know each other. There wasn’t a hub of communication, and as far as D.C. was concerned there wasn’t a group of Latinos who would get together, go to the Hill, afterwards go drink together, celebrate together, cry together, stay in the game longer because you had a family, you had a support team. That didn’t exist.”

A vision to correct that disconnection led Magaña create GreenLatinos. The organization serves as a network to link up people working on similar issues throughout the United States. “We work to link them up with trusted resources and organizations who are like-minded and want to work on the same issues,” Magaña says. “People need the ability to find out about these successful burgeoning local battles and have to be able to have the trust to be able to work together quickly.”

It’s also a major focus of the organization’s third annual National GreenLatinos Summit, coming May 23-26 at the Asilomar Conference Grounds on California’s Monterey Peninsula. The summit will feature workshops, speakers, and the opportunity to meet people working on similar issues. “You’ve got to meet these people and build personal relationships that aren’t just email-based,” Magaña says. “You know that you can vouch for this person, you met them, you know them, you can work with them, I’ll sign onto their letter, I will move on their cause, because I trust them.”

All of this comes at an important time, especially for the Latino community, following last year’s divisive presidential election. “Trump created himself as a populist, but it wasn’t the case,” Magaña says. “He wasn’t looking after the people. He’s looking after corporate interests. People are realizing that he’s going to take away their healthcare and that he’s going to pollute their air and their water.” He noted that the Trump administration’s reversal of the ban on the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which has been linked to developmental risks for children and other health risks and poses a particular danger to Latino agricultural workers and surrounding communities.

Magaña says he sees great opportunities for successful environmental changes on the state and local level, especially when it comes to supporting local fights with the resources they need to win on environmental issues. “Just organizing that alone, and helping to develop those relationships and those linkages, would really bring about a significant change,” he says. This would not only help local issues but also grow the number of “environmental champions” that exist in local communities and maybe even help pave the way for future success on the federal level.

“Now is our time to build and grow,” he says.

Welcome to The Revelator

Dangerous times call for a new kind of environmental news site.

The Earth is at a crossroads.

The climate crisis is deepening, the wildlife extinction crisis is worsening, and pressure on the world’s resources is at an all-time high (to say nothing of the proposed dismantlement of the Environmental Protection Agency, our public lands and the Endangered Species Act).

The world has become an increasingly complicated place. It needs a new kind of environmental news site.

That’s where The Revelator comes in.

Starting today, The Revelator — an independent news site published by the Center for Biological Diversity — aims to be a distinct and fearless voice for conservation in the 21st century. We’ll bring you stories about endangered species, climate change, sustainability, public lands and other important matters. We’ll also provide you with the context and bigger picture behind these issues — details you may not be able to get anywhere else.

In addition to our regular news coverage, The Revelator will include investigative journalism and stories that dig deep into issues that matter. The site will also be the new home for “Extinction Countdown,” my long-running column about the science and politics of endangered species, most recently published by Scientific American, as well as quite a few additional articles by me, all drawing on my 10 years of experience as an environmental journalist.

The Revelator will also feature essays and other contributions from some of the best minds working in conservation and environmental issues, many of whom might have things to say that will surprise you.

Our aim is to provide smart, essential reading for the public, the environmental movement, the media and decision-makers — because accepting the status quo is no longer an option.

Since you’re probably already asking, let’s talk about the name of this publication. “Revelator” is an old-school word for truth-teller. That’s our mission: shining a light on environmental issues so we can find out what works, what doesn’t, and how we can get to a brighter future.

More broadly, yes, the word “revelator” also has fairly apocalyptic overtones — these are tough times, after all — and we’d sure like to help the world avoid getting to that particular junction.

Part of revealing the truth means earning your trust.

First, we want our readers to know that they can come to us for stories that are honest, in-depth, and independent. Environmental journalism is, it can be argued, a form of activism, and we are published by an activist organization, but we enter into our reporting with no preconceived notions or agendas other than continuing a safe existence on this planet. We go where the stories and facts take us: nothing more, nothing less.

Second, we want people to feel comfortable talking to us. Whether it’s the sources for our news articles, who want to make sure we get the facts straight, or whistleblowers who want to shine a light on what’s going on the world but be protected in the process, we promise to listen, tell your tales, and provide an unwavering spotlight on the truth. The process starts when you send us story ideas to tips@therevelator.org.

Finally, we want and value the participation of our readers. Please feel free to post comments, or mail them to comments@therevelator.org. Your ideas matter and we look forward to adding them to the conversation. (You can find our full comment policy here.)

Let’s get moving. On our first day, we present to you several great new pieces:

There’s plenty more to come, including a look at the impact of Trump’s border wall, a massive investigation into an oil company that has so far stayed out of the limelight, and a few interesting essays that we can’t wait to share with you.

That’s just scratching the surface. The Revelator has a lot of stories to tell in the coming weeks and months. So stick around and see what truths we can reveal for you.

John R. Platt
Editor, The Revelator
jplatt@therevelator.org

The Extinction Crisis is Here. How do We Keep from Feeling Overwhelmed?

Conservation requires optimism. These experts share how they maintain it.

Elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory. A fungus is wiping out the world’s frogs. Ring-tailed lemurs have all but vanished into the illegal pet and meat trades. Creatures big and small are going extinct, and here in the United States the Endangered Species Act itself is constantly at risk of landing on the chopping block. It’s a bleak world in many ways — but is doom and gloom the only possible response?

Quite frankly, no. As someone who has spent the past 10 years reporting on the extinction crisis, I find that the very people who are helping to save endangered species are often the ones who know the best reasons to stay optimistic.

Here, in the first installment of The Revelator’s regular feature “The Ask,” we posed an important question to several top conservationists:

How do you stay positive in the face of the ongoing extinction crisis?

Their answers may surprise you — and offer some inspiration as well.

Stuart Pimm, Doris Duke Chair of Conservation at Duke University and President of SavingSpecies

Stuart PimmWhen Al Gore in “An Inconvenient Truth” talks about “a mass extinction crisis, with a rate of extinction now 1,000 times higher than the normal background rate,” that’s the research my group and I do that he’s quoting. Journalists often ask how I get up in the morning, given how depressing is the subject. Well, it’s not what we spend most of our time doing!

Knowing which species are at risk and where allows us to focus on how to prevent extinctions. Conservation science is barely a generation old and the successes are everywhere. The U.S. Endangered Species Act means we can see bald eagles across the continent, peregrines snatching pigeons in our largest cities, and go with so many other tourists to watch whales off both coasts.

Globally, while tropical deforestation remains the principal threat to species, governments have set aside every larger fractions of their land as national parks. Individual species on the very brink of extinction have been saved. And across the critical areas — hotspots — where threatened species concentrate, organizations such as SavingSpecies help local conservation groups buy degraded land to reforest it and re-establish connections between the isolated forest fragments that deforestation has left behind.

Yes, it’s bad, but it doesn’t have to get worse.

Luke Hunter, President and Chief Conservation Officer for Panthera, a wild cat conservation organization

Luke HunterNature’s extraordinary resilience fills me with hope.

I learned this during my first hands-on experience with big cats, 25 years ago as a doctoral student in South Africa. As the country emerged from its apartheid-era isolation, I started a project to reintroduce cheetahs and lions to areas of their historic range. Great swathes of former ranchlands were rehabilitated, replacing old fences, corrals and cattle with zebras, wildebeest, rhinos and elephants. Once prey populations were replenished, we released the big cats. And they blossomed.

I watched entire ecosystems return to the wild, as reintroduced cats established territories, found mates and raised their cubs — the first generation born to areas that had lost their kind decades earlier. Today, over 50 of these newly created populations collectively protect many hundreds of wild cats where there had once been cows.

The South African project succeeded, in part, because of massive investment in dollars and technical expertise, but cats and their ecosystems can bounce back naturally, if circumstances allow. European colonization of North America drove the mountain lion largely into the remote refugia of the Rockies. As urbanization and growing tolerance has created space for predators, mountain lions are gradually pushing back east, on their own. Similarly, the nations of Western Europe had destroyed all but tiny remnants of their native forest and its wildlife until political stability and a strict conservation ethic emerged after World War II. Recovering lynxes, bears and wolves now live in and around some of Europe’s most densely populated urban areas.

Sadly, there are populations of big cats and their habitats around the world for which such a recovery is probably too late. But for many others, all they need is a reprieve. If we can back off the human pressure — especially the hunting of prey and the relentless persecution of the cats themselves — they will do the rest.  All we have to do is give them that chance.

Marni LaFleur, founder and Director of Lemur Love and an adjunct professor of Anthropology at the University of California San Diego

Marni LaFleurIn short, I focus on the individual. My research and conservation work focuses on wild ring-tailed lemurs, an endangered species, and it is important that I know and recognize each lemur that I study and follow. I know what each lemur eats, who they are or aren’t friends with, where they sleep, and I also recognize when things change. If “Pinkie” or “the Hamburglar” weren’t around one day, or if their trees were missing, I’d know; it would matter and I could potentially do something about it.

Of course, I can’t pay this level of detail to large numbers of animals or expansive areas of forest, but by working with like-minded conservationists, together we can tackle larger areas and protect more individuals and species. Focusing on individuals allows be to remain connected to the animals and forests I love and to stay positive despite the overwhelmingly discouraging extinction crisis.

Kerry Kriger, founder and Executive Director of Save the Frogs

Kerry KrigerPrior to becoming directly involved in the environmental conservation movement, I was pessimistic about the future of the planet. However, my pessimism was replaced by optimism as soon as I took action and started doing my part to improve the state of the world and the situation for wildlife and threatened species. I have seen firsthand the positive contributions made by a multitude of individuals who dedicate themselves to protecting amphibian populations and promoting a society that respects and appreciates nature and wildlife.

And I have seen the impact I have personally made. I know that there are unending ways in which people can help out, and thus it is not a question of what people can do, it is simply a question of how to motivate people to actually take action. If everybody did their individual part, we could solve most of the current problems faced by endangered species.

James Deutsch, Director of Wildlife Conservation at Paul G. Allen’s Vulcan Inc.

James DeutschIn spite of the various political things going on in the world, in conservation we’ve actually had some good news over the last six months, on international wildlife trafficking and specifically on elephants. First, the CITES meeting in Johannesburg in 2016 represented a real sea change from CITES being seen primarily as a mechanism to promote and regulate trade in endangered species to equally a mechanism for protecting endangered species from unsustainable international trade. And the results were just fantastic, with Appendix I protections for the African grey parrot, humphead wrasse, all rosewood species and many others. And then we had the fantastic Appendix II listings of nine species of mobula rays and four species of shark. That was something that Paul Allen contributed substantially to the effort behind.

We also moved forward a bit on the elephant issue with maintaining the international ban on trade in ivory despite some countries asking that it be lifted. That was followed, not long after, at the end of the year, with the president of China’s amazing announcement that China would close down all of its domestic ivory markets in the space of one year. Many of us expected he would announce the closure, but I think we had expected it would be three years or five years. For him to agree to do it in one year, and since then move on the plan to do that that exactly on schedule, is really exciting. It represents this maturation of China into a society which is becoming more concerned about environmental issues generally, both in China and globally. That’s really exciting for the future of the world. I think if we as a conservation community continue to work with China — occasionally with a stick, but mostly with a carrot — I think there’s every reason to believe that progression can continue.

Robin Moore, Communications Director and conservation biologist, Global Wildlife Conservation

Robin MooreI remind myself often that it is in our nature to gravitate toward narratives that are dystopian or utopian, even though reality usually lies somewhere in between. I seek out narratives that paint a more nuanced portrait of our world, drawn to those with a more optimistic outlook that help keep me positive and motivated. It was with this in mind that we at Global Wildlife Conservation developed the Search for Lost Species as a vehicle for crafting different narratives around the extinction crisis — narratives that are built upon the poignancy of loss but ultimately engender hope and perseverance in the face of long odds.

I am lucky enough to travel to some of the biologically richest places on the planet, to see and hear and feel the symphony of life in its fullest expression, and to be continually bowled over with wonder and awe. I am lucky enough to meet people on the front lines protecting that which they love, and it is the gratitude and inspiration that I draw from these people that ultimately keeps me positive and hopeful.

Join the discussion! Share how you stay positive when thinking about or working to help endangered species by commenting below, or tag us on Twitter at @Revelator_News.

Mining the Truth in Peru

I went to Peru to screen a documentary about mining and ended up getting detained.

(The Revelator’s investigative journalist was seized by Peruvian authorities last month. This is his story.)

CUZCO, Peru— I’d just stepped onto the sidewalk after showing my documentary film on Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals’ worldwide operations, on the evening of Friday, April 21, when more than a dozen plainclothes policemen surrounded me.

The cops closest to me pulled badges from under their jackets and demanded my passport, which I had in my computer bag, slung from my shoulder. I showed it to them, and they ordered me into the rear seat of a pickup truck.

A few minutes later, Jen Moore, the Latin America program coordinator for MiningWatch, Canada — an Ottawa nonprofit seeking to reform Canadian mining operations — was detained and put into the truck with me. My Spanish is limited, but Jen is fluent, and it soon became clear that we were going to be taken to the immigration office, supposedly to discuss what we could and couldn’t do in Peru under our tourist visas.

We strongly suspected the highly unusual, and possibly illegal, detention wasn’t for a mere technical visa violation, which is typically handled without a major police operation and punishable by a small fine.

The circumstances and timing all pointed to Hudbay exerting its considerable influence over the Peruvian National Police to intimidate us and send a warning to others not to present information that undermined its corporate line.

Our offense? Showing and distributing copies of my documentary “Flin Flon Flim Flam” that I had dubbed into Spanish and Quechua.

Hudbay Minerals’ Constancia open pit copper mine looms over a Peruvian homestead. Photo By John Dougherty

I produced the film in 2014 and released it in October 2015; I agreed to travel to Peru with MiningWatch prior to my employment with The Revelator beginning in January. In fact, I was just finishing the drafts of my first stories for The Revelator when all of this went down (so much for meeting those deadlines). But I believe in this documentary and the importance of informing the public about what’s happening where they live.

The film exposes Hudbay’s history of serious environmental pollution in Flin Flon, Manitoba, that left children poisoned with heavy metals. It reveals longstanding conflicts with indigenous people in Canada and Guatemala, including allegations in a Toronto civil case of murder, a shooting and gang rapes. The film reports on Hudbay’s plans to build Rosemont Mine, which would be the third-largest open-pit copper mine in the United States in an environmentally sensitive watershed, on a national forest in southern Arizona that’s home to a dozen endangered species including the jaguar.

The film opens with footage of Peruvian National Police beating and tear-gassing villagers during a peaceful demonstration near Hudbay’s Constancia Mine in November 2014. I flew to Peru a few days after the villagers were attacked. I interviewed and filmed protesters, including those who had been beaten. I filmed villagers in the Constancia open pit, which they’d seized several days before I arrived, shutting down mining operations.

A Hudbay Minerals mining truck approaches after dumping rock for construction of the Constancia Mine tailings dam near Uchucarco, Peru. Photo By John Dougherty

At that time, Hudbay, like other multinational mining companies with Peruvian operations, had a contract to pay the Peruvian National Police to serve as its private security force. The film includes a photo of a line of police wearing green rain ponchos with Hudbay’s logo.

On this rainy, fall evening in Cuzco, we had every reason to believe Hudbay’s police contract was still in place — and that seems to be why we were picked up off the street by a swarm of police.

Hudbay has since confirmed that it has a current contract with the Peruvian National Police. In a May 8 statement issued to the London-based Business and Human Rights Resource Centre, the company stated, “Hudbay Peru has an arrangement with the Peruvian national police whereby the police provide periodic security to the Constancia operation.”

Hudbay also states it had no role in the police operations leading to our detention. “With regard to the assertion Hudbay had influence in this matter, we will not disrespect the Government of Peru by responding to the assertion it can be told what to do by any entity,” the company stated.

As we sat in the back of the police car, my mind raced over the previous four days, when we had traveled to remote villages in Peru’s southern Andes to screen the film and pass out hundreds of DVDs in communities directly affected by Hudbay’s open-pit mining operations. Two Peruvian NGOs, Derechos Humanos Sin Fronteras-Cusco and Cooperación, along with Ottawa-based MiningWatch, organized the logistics with the local communities.

John Dougherty and Jen Moore answer questions from local residents after screening the documentary “Flin Flon Flim Flam” on April 19 in Velille, Peru.

The screenings were free and open to the public, including Hudbay supporters and police. We knew police were tracking our movements as we traveled across the spectacular escarpments and deep canyons where indigenous people remarkably sustain themselves with their own hands from a land so high it pierces the sky.

“We didn’t know what Hudbay was doing,” was a common refrain from those who attended the film screenings. “Thank you!”

Many asked questions about the film and Hudbay’s operations in Peru and other countries. Jen served as my translator. Nearly everyone who attended wanted a DVD of the film. In rural Peru, where Internet service is sparse, DVDs are an important way to share information.

The reception in Peru was far more enthusiastic than the generally tepid response last summer when I traveled across Canada and showed the film in 15 cities and towns. Hudbay declined an offer I made during its 2016 annual meeting to attend the premier screening in Toronto and has never issued a statement about the film.

The company declined two emailed requests to be interviewed for the film. Last week during its annual meeting CEO Hair dismissed the film as “fiction.” In a May 10 email to me, Scott Brubacher, Hudbay’s director of corporation communications, declined to cite any factual errors in the film.

The Canadian press, which is cowed by the country’s draconian right-to-reputation legal tradition, ignored the film keeping with its head-in-the-sand approach of rarely taking a critical look at Hudbay’s controversial overseas operations. The same tender treatment holds true with the entire Canadian mining sector, which is home to two-thirds of the world’s publicly traded mining companies.

Like most companies, Hudbay strictly controls what information it releases to the media. And, for the most part, the media typically accepts whatever information is provided as gospel. The press rarely conducts independent reporting on how a company such as Hudbay operates on the ground and is often too quick to dismiss activists as illegitimate whiners.

The people who own and operate companies like Hudbay, which is traded on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges, often remain hidden from public scrutiny. They are shielded by slick propaganda, corporate philanthropy designed to secure acquiescence from civil and educational groups and campaign donations to influence elected officials.

But when the press takes the time to do thorough reporting and present accurate information that a company wants to hide, the public always benefits. And when that information is taken back to the stakeholder communities in their native language, the impact’s even more profound.

Our “discussion” with immigration authorities lasted more than four hours. After I refused repeated demands to sign papers including a declaration without an English-speaking attorney present, they let us go about 1 a.m. Saturday morning.

We were ordered to appear before an immigration judge the following Monday at 9 a.m. The short time between our detention and initial appearance appears to be a violation of Peruvian law, which requires three-business day notice on immigration matters.

Later on the same day we were released, the Peruvian Interior Ministry issued a highly unusual press release (English) claiming that Jen and I were trying to incite the rural population and create a public disturbance by showing the film. With the clear potential of more serious criminal charges in the works, and acting on the advice of our respective attorneys, Jen and I left Peru on the evening of April 22.

But the screenings continued to a packed house April 25 presentation in Lima at an event hosted by Cooperación.

We now have separate legal teams defending us in the immigration matter and hope for a favorable resolution.

I’m lucky. I came home and feel safe enough to tell my story. But in Peru — and indeed throughout Latin America and other parts of the world — those who stand up to environmental injustices face a much more dangerous fate. There have been beatings and all manner of threats toward those fighting to protect air, water, land, wildlife and themselves. Even worse, twelve environmental activists were killed in Peru in 2015.

But I’m also bringing home another truth: The fact that a homemade film where I handled most of the production and editing elicited such a harsh response from the Peruvian Interior Ministry clearly shows that our most valuable commodity — accurate and timely information — remains as crucial as ever.

This is the case not only in Peru and other faraway lands but here at home, in the United States, where the nation faces an unprecedented disinformation campaign by a president who is at war with science and with truth.

There’s much work to be done. Welcome to The Revelator.