Will Otters Be Picketing Outside BP Habitat at the Long Beach Aquarium?

Opening tomorrow is the BP Sea Otter Habitat Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Yes, that BP. The Los Angeles Times looks at the delicate job of balancing donations---BP had previously donated $1 million to the Aquarium--with high-profile corporate disasters. BP officials might not attend the opening (although the Aquarium hopes they still show up, and there is no talk of taking the BP name off the entrance sign.) Nor does there seem to be any fallout over at LACMA or KCET, where BP has donated $25 million, respectively, since 2004. Over at Culture Monster, art critic Christopher Knight weighs in on the BP Entrance at LACMA. Verdict: Scandal, schmandal. But there is a rocky past, according to the LA Times: "BP's environmental record in Southern California was blemished before these gifts. After a 1990 tanker spill off Huntington Beach, it paid $21.9 million in cleanup and settlement costs. In 2002, it paid the state $45.8 million to settle a suit over pollution from leaking gasoline storage tanks. Later, leakage of smog-forming chemicals at its refinery in Carson resulted in $81 million in fines and other payments."
· BP oil spill poses PR dilemma for nonprofits [LA Times]