On August 12, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced BP finally agreed to pay a record $50.6-million fine for safety violations that led to the 2005 explosion at its Texas City, Texas, refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 170 others. Now, in the wake of its oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, BP faces federal fines that will make the Texas City penalties look like pocket change.
Working with teams of doctors, scientists, and public health experts, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is currently planning and developing a large-scale study of the short-term and long-term physical and psychological tolls the BP oil spill has had upon the cleanup workers and the larger population of the Gulf Coast. The federal agency expects the study to encompass several thousands of people in the five states adversely affected by the massive oil spill: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.
BP announced yesterday that its blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico has been permanently sealed, five months after the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded killing 11 workers and causing the largest oil spill in history.
BP has said it will not pay the state of Alabama $148 million in tax revenue lost when the massive oil spill crippled industry along its entire length of Gulf coastline. The oil company cited the lawsuit brought against it by Alabama attorney general Troy King for oil spill damages as one of the reasons for its refusal to pay the claim.
Was BP grossly negligent in causing the Gulf oil spill, or do the contractors hired by the oil giant, including the Deepwater Horizon rig’s owner, share blame for the disaster? The answer to that question is worth about $40 billion, and some analysts believe that the findings contained in an internal BP report could ease the financial burden on BP by laying some of the blame on BP’s contracted help and partners.
Oceanographers and scientists have been warning that only time will reveal how much damage BP’s massive oil spill and its use of chemical oil dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico have done to the environment and marine ecology. This week a troubling sign has emerged in the form of an astonishingly large mass of floating dead fish just west of the Mississippi River in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s newly released fisheries report finds New Bedford, Massachusetts, and Dutch Harbor-Unalaska, Alaska, remaining at the top in 2009 for value and amount of fish landed, but the inclusion of several Gulf fisheries among last year’s top ten underscores just how much was lost in 2010 – for both the Gulf Coast and the national economy as a whole — in the wake of BP’s oil spill.
The United Kingdom’s Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has warned the nation’s offshore oil and gas industry about its safety record after the latest statistics revealed significant increases in serious injuries and unexpected hydrocarbon releases. The announcement reflects an ongoing trend in the UK and the United States, interpreted by many critics as a worsening state of safety and environmental protections.
A Gulf Coast still reeling from the April 20 Deepwater Horizon drilling platform explosion, which killed 11 workers and dumped thousands of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for months, braced for another round this morning when reports began coming in about another oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana. Again?? You could almost hear the groan of a weary population whose lives, livelihoods and lifestyle have been irreparably damaged by the BP oil disaster.
Update #2 (9/02/2010 @ 4:45pm) – Coast Guard Petty Officer Elizabeth Bordelon said there is a sheen on the water at the site of the platform, measuring about 100 feet wide and stretching for one mile. Jindal said the sheen can’t be confirmed.
The fire at the platform is not out yet, but it has been contained, Bordelon said.
Update #1 (9/02/2010 @ 12:31pm) – All thirteen people aboard a production platform that exploded in the Gulf are accounted for and safely on a commercial vessel according to initial information, the U.S. Coast Guard said in a statement.
“We continue to gather information as we respond with full force, and have oil spill response assets ready for immediate deployment should we receive any reports of pollution,” the statement said.
Original Story (9/02/2010 @ 10:30am) – An offshore petroleum platform exploded and was burning Thursday in the Gulf of Mexico about 80 miles off the Louisiana coast, west of the site where BP’s undersea well spilled after a rig explosion.
The Coast Guard says no one was killed in the blast, which was reported by a commercial helicopter flying over the area Thursday morning. All 13 people aboard the rig have been accounted for, with one injury. The extent of the injury was not known.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Cheri Ben-Iesau said some of those from the rig were spotted in emergency flotation devices.
Seven Coast Guard helicopters, two airplanes and three cutters were dispatched to the scene from New Orleans, Houston and Mobile, Ala., Ben-Iesau said. She said authorities do not know whether oil was leaking from the site.
The Department of Homeland Security said the platform was in about 2,500 feet of water and owned by Mariner Energy of Houston. DHS said it was not producing oil and gas.
The Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP was in about 5,000 feet of water when it exploded and sank in April, killing 11 workers and triggering a leak of about 206 million gallons of oil.
