1-year after BP Disaster, Transocean Execs Unconscionably Greedy, DOI Arrogant
Today, we remember the 11 crew members who died in the explosion of the Transocean DeepWater Horizon oil rig and the very long, disastrous oil spill that followed. The disaster began 1 year ago tonight.
This is a continuation of yesterday’s post.
There is an ongoing investigation and a forensic study of the blowout preventer (BOP) that failed. Here is the link to the DNV report Forensic Examination Report of DeepWater Horizon Blowout Preventer (pdf)
There are problems with the studies done on the BOP by DNV that were revealed in court on April 5. Studies were performed using computer models instead of actual laboratory testing. The report doesn’t include the data used in the models. The testing may have been rushed as well. There are still too many questions about the blowout preventer that need real answers. This doesn’t change the known failure rate of 45%. That was measured by real blowout preventer failures.
Here is a link to Bob Cavnar’s blog, The Daily Hurricane with more video and analysis. It’s a great resource for details about this disaster you won’t find unless you read the New Orleans Times-Picayune or Houston Chronicle newspapers.
Here is a real kick in the teeth from Transocean, on whose rig the crew members were killed:
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That is unconscionable!!! How is killing 11 workers and spilling oil in the Gulf for months in any way safe? They should be ashamed of even contemplating a safety award. If this was a safe year, what is a dangerous year?
At least they gave the safety award money to the families of the dead. They even skimped on some of that. Here is Bob Cavnar’s take on how they recalculated the safety portion of their bonuses.
I agree with Rachel that corporations are not people and that’s why we need government to make them behave. But I disagree that we shouldn’t expect more humane and moral behavior out of them. They may not be people, but they are run by people who make all those corporate decisions that ultimately hurt people, or help them. If corporations can’t be run with at least some benevolence toward the humans that work for them and live in the communities they inhabit, maybe we should get rid of major corporations. It’s not going to happen, but it might solve a lot of the problems we face today, and not just in the oil industry.
The culture of a corporation is dictated by the people who run it. Corporations can be humane, good citizens, and caring members of their communities. Or they can be the bane of those communities.
If there is a deep culture of safety and doing things right over profits, corners won’t be cut and preventable accidents will be prevented. If an accident does occur, it doesn’t take a government shut-down to stop operations until all the facts of the accident are known and deficiencies corrected. Corporations that put safety first reap the benefits. Having to deal with a major accident that causes employee deaths and a catastrophe is not profitable.
Another thing that makes it clear that corporations aren’t people is when they kill 11 workers, no one gets arrested or goes to jail, at least not unless they can prove individuals are directly responsible. Big, systemic mistakes and lack of adequate design, forethought and training somehow don’t make any individuals responsible. The explanation? Accidents happen. But they don’t have to if the corporate culture puts safety first.
Drilling permits are being awarded again.
Interview with Michael Bromwich, the person who grants drilling permits, on April 7 (16 min.):
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I’m especially shocked that Mr. Bromwich didn’t care that U.S. oil rig workers have a death rate 4 times higher than workers in Europe. My God. The DOI doesn’t care about a higher death rate? He could have said something contrite, or caring, or we’re greatly disturbed by this and are studying it thoroughly. My mouth still hangs open when I watch this video, and I’ve seen it more than a few times.
It is important that there are new procedures and better training is being done on the cementing of wells. (See the previous post). Had that been done correctly, it is likely this well would not have blown out and we wouldn’t have had to rely on a faulty BOP, which failed. But if BOPs are required on all rigs in the U.S., and they only work 55% of the time, why are they required and relied on as a last line of protection?
Containment can now be done in 17 days instead of 87 days according to Mr. Bromwich. While 17 days is better than 87, there was a hell of a lot of oil already in the Gulf after 17 days. That’s not good enough:
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There may not be a national freak-out, but I’m freaked out. I can’t believe Mr. Bromwich’s attitude.
Associated Press finally reporting on oil rig disasters:
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The deep water drilling industry had/has a huge failure of imagination, just like those in charge of our nuclear power plants. The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant disaster after a 9.0 earthquake followed by a tsunami suffered the same lack of imagination.
The powers that be in both industries failed to imagine that all their back-up and fail-safe equipment could fail. They just assumed they had enough back-ups and redundancies that something like that couldn’t happen. The same goes for worst-case scenarios about levees and the catastrophic flooding of New Orleans and other areas that rely on levees for flood control. No one imagined everything could go wrong at once. Well, it can. Future policies, rules and procedures need to make sure that the worst possible circumstances are addressed, no matter how remote.
BP’s Chairman really doesn’t have a clue about how much damage this disaster caused, nor does he seem to really care that 11 people died.
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I’m beginning to think when something like this happens, the executives in charge should be thrown into the oil they are spilling. Maybe one executive should be dumped into the oily water and sacrificed for each worker injured or killed? That’s a bit Old-Testament, but damn, this is infuriating.
The worst thing of all is the government regulators seems to be more concerned about the oil industry than about the people their mistakes impact. Maybe we should throw them in, too.
I keep putting up posts about this disaster because the whole of this; the loss of life, the environmental damage, it’s meaning for our future, and our expectations about safety have not sunk in to oil industry executives or federal regulators.
Like Rachel, I’m going to keep covering this story as long as it affects Louisiana. I just hope someone with real power to make changes will read this, understand our outrage, and do the right things so this doesn’t happen again. Right now, I don’t have much faith in government regulations, and I have no faith in the oil industry.
Filed under: Accountability and Justice, Environment, Lessons & Analysis, Non-storm Disasters | 1 Comment »
