Turns out the excuse of “my dog ate my homework” can be utilized by multibillion greenback companies in addition to grade schoolers. The LA Times reported Wednesday that an organization owned by Halliburton is making wild excuses about proof in its involvement in fixing a fuel leak, in what could also be an try to deflect blame for the huge leak from the utility accountable.

The case issues a California Public Utilities Commission investigation of the Aliso Canyon methane leak 25 miles outdoors of Los Angeles, the place a breach in a pure fuel storage nicely in 2015 despatched greater than 100,000 metric tons of methane spewing into the ambiance for months in one of many greatest environmental disasters in U.S. historical past. The leak prompted widespread well being impacts amongst folks residing within the space and compelled some 4,400 residents to relocate whereas Southern California Gas, the utility that owned the storage nicely, tried to repair the issue.

SoCalGas didn’t act alone: they employed Boots & Coots (sure, that’s the title), a nicely management firm owned by oilfield providers big Halliburton (the same one that turned a tidy profit from the Iraq war). Unfortunately, Boots & Coots blew it—repeatedly. Between late 2015 and early 2016, the Halliburton subsidiary tried and failed six instances to plug the defective nicely; SoCalGas lastly succeeded in fixing the leak utilizing one other tactic in February 2016, 4 months after it began in October.

An evaluation has advised that this failure is partially attributable to the truth that Boots & Coots didn’t do any pc modeling about one of the best methods to cease the leak earlier than getting in and attempting to make things better. But the LA Times reported that SoCalGas has begun claiming to state regulators that Boots & Coots did do modeling. In an extremely *cough* unlucky twist, this modeling was executed on one worker’s laptop computer, which was then stolen from a Best Buy car parking zone in December of 2015. Because the work wasn’t saved wherever else, the corporate claims, it bought misplaced, they usually can’t current it in court docket.

This excuse that wouldn’t go a third-grade lecturers’ sniff check may have real-world ramifications for any punishment doled out for the catastrophe. The Commission remains to be weighing fining or penalizing SoCalGas for the leak and the delayed cleanup course of. Public advocates say that the utility’s shareholders ought to pay for the leak, and be taken to job for any errors made within the cleanup course of; if Boots & Coots did conduct modeling because it claimed, that’s one much less mistake to be held accountable for.

Gizmodo contacted Halliburton for remark, and the corporate responded by electronic mail, stating that “Boots & Coots is a company hired by well owners and operators for well intervention services and only works for those owners or operators under express written contracts, including at Aliso Canyon. While Boots & Coots complies with lawful legal process, it does not comment on pending legal proceedings.”

Incredibly, this isn’t the primary time that Halliburton has misplaced key proof of fossil-fuel-related fuckups. In the 2000s, Halliburton was contracted by BP to handle its Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The April 2010 explosion on the rig, which killed 11 staff and prompted 134 million gallons of oil to eventually spill into the Gulf of Mexico, was prompted partly partly by a defective cement combine. Halliburton was convinced in 2013 of a misdemeanor offence for destroying proof throughout a federal probe that confirmed firm officers knew in regards to the unhealthy cement however allowed it for use anyway. (Halliburton additionally informed Gizmodo that linking the Aliso leak and Deepwater Horizon is “wholly inaccurate and misleading.”)

If this sounds fishy to you, you’re not alone. In a movement filed in August, California’s Public Advocates Office, the patron watchdog of the utilities fee, questioned why the stolen laptop computer was simply being introduced up now and why the worker hadn’t backed up this significant work elsewhere. The submitting additionally factors out that the CEO of Sempra Energy, the guardian of SoCalGas, sat on the Halliburton board when the utility determined to rent Boots & Coots to plug the leak. Nothing to see right here!

Whether or not SoCalGas might be held in any approach answerable for the leak stays to be seen. Aliso Canyon, in the meantime, remains to be in use: the Public Utilities Commission voted simply final month to increase gas storage on the facility, amongst widespread native opposition. And Halliburton doesn’t need to do a lot speaking. Boots & Coots was capable of protect itself from extra questions from the Public Utilities Commission via a court docket in Texas, which dominated it didn’t need to reply questions from the California authorities. Must be good to be an organization.