This Massive Oil Sponsorship Simply Received Dirtier
The Dodgers do enterprise with an organization that’s been polluting LA neighborhoods — and the local weather — for years. Now, Phillips 66 faces federal fees of unlawful wastewater dumping.
The Los Angeles Dodgers’ most distinguished sponsor — Phillips 66, which owns 76 fuel — was simply indicted for violating the Clear Water Act by allegedly dumping a whole lot of hundreds of gallons of commercial wastewater from its Carson oil refinery into the LA County sewer system. The main points are spelled out in a six-count indictment towards the Houston-based firm returned by a federal grand jury.
“If convicted of all fees, Phillips 66 would face a statutory most sentence of 5 years’ probation on every rely and as much as $2.4 million in fines,” reads a U.S. DOJ press launch.
The blue crew ought to eject 76 from Dodger Stadium whereas they’re at it.
Why, chances are you’ll ask, do I even convey up the Dodgers? Why sully the LA champions’ repute with these allegations? That’s the query that Dodgers administration needs to be answering. The workforce’s longtime association with 76 places the orange ball brand excessive atop each outfield scoreboards, plastered on giveaway towels and bobbleheads. Anytime LA followers take video and pictures of heroic home-game performs we’re inadvertently advertising for Phillips 66. In the meantime, the emissions, soot, and nasty odors coming from the corporate’s gasoline storage tanks and community of pipelines have been a nuisance to the native communities for many years. (Phillips 66 introduced abruptly this fall that they’re pulling up anchor and leaving, closing their Carson and Wilmington twin refineries.) However there’s nothing like federal fees of illegally dumping “oil and grease greater than 300 occasions the focus allowed” to underline the problem. A grassroots marketing campaign already has a petition with greater than 22,800 signatures asking the Dodgers to dump the sponsorship. This might gentle a fireplace underneath these calls.
A public relations disaster like that is precisely the time when corporations like Phillips 66 money in on company advertising, native goodwill, and sports activities sponsorships to greenwash their picture.
A whole lot of that goes on in American sports activities. A survey I performed of 2024 sponsorships throughout the NBA, NFL, MLB, NHL, MLS, and WNBA revealed greater than 60 sponsorship offers with high-polluting corporations. The “Foul Ball” survey was revealed by the UCLA Emmett Institute on Local weather Change & the Surroundings in September. Since publishing the survey, 8 extra sponsorship offers had been added to the spreadsheet, for a complete of 69, both as a result of they weren’t included within the authentic information set that we used, or as a result of they’re model new offers. A report by the New Climate Institute discovered that “sportswashing” is a $5.6 Billion trade.
All of this explains why the Phillips 66 facility emblazons one among its huge gasoline tanks with a Dodger baseball jersey. And why at Halloween, the corporate attire up its different gasoline tank like a cute Jack-o-lantern and fingers out sweet to neighborhood youngsters. “Collaborating with these revered organizations integrates our model with client ardour factors,” a Phillips 66 official mentioned on this August 2024 press launch a couple of soccer sponsorship. The corporate’s technique is “not nearly brand placement,” the discharge says, but in addition about “enhancing our model presence.”
For now, it’s the Division of Justice and U.S. EPA that can be defining the Phillips 66 model presence. Right here’s extra from the DOJ:
“Based on the indictment {that a} federal grand jury returned on Wednesday, for about two-and-a-half hours on the early morning of November 24, 2020, Phillips’ Carson refinery discharged to the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts (LACSD) – which manages the county’s sewer system – industrial wastewater containing a focus of oil and grease greater than 300 occasions the focus allowed in its allow. The corporate’s Carson facility failed to tell LACSD of its non-compliant industrial wastewater discharge.
Throughout this roughly two-and-a-half-hour interval, LACSD roughly estimated that the Phillips 66 facility in Carson discharged roughly 310,000 gallons of non-compliant industrial wastewater, which contained roughly 64,000 lbs. of oil and grease, to LACSD’s sewer system. The vitality firm’s industrial wastewater pretreatment system course of controls and practices had been insufficient to stop or shortly tackle the non-compliant discharge.
In December 2020, LACSD issued Phillips a number of discover of violations for discharging the commercial wastewater containing an extreme focus of oil and grease, and failing to inform LACSD in regards to the discharge, which adversely affected an LACSD facility. The next month, a Phillips supervisor wrote to LACSD, acknowledged its non-compliant industrial wastewater discharge, and famous that the corporate would “retrain operations personnel” on such conditions and the process to inform LACSD when it occurs.
Throughout the night hours of February 8, 2021, Phillips’ Carson refinery – for about five-and-a-half hours – discharged roughly 480,000 gallons of non-compliant industrial wastewater, which contained a minimum of 33,700 kilos of oil and grease, to LACSD’s sewer system.
In March 2021, LACSD – the month following the incident – issued notices of violations to Phillips for discharging industrial wastewater which adversely affected an LACSD facility and for its failure to inform the LACSD about mentioned wastewater discharge. Once more, a Phillips supervisor at its Carson facility wrote to LACSD and acknowledged the non-compliant industrial wastewater discharge and the corporate’s failure to inform authorities of the discharge.”