While the Coast Guard and OSHA are looking at human error and/or mechanical failures to determine what caused this tragic accident, I can't help but wonder if the underlying root cause of this disaster is neither human error or mechanical failure but rather corporate culture.

When the newspapers reported on the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon's demise, they quoted statistics regarding oil rig disasters in the GOM.

Perhaps where they should have been looking was at BP's safety record. The Deepwater Horizon is the 4th incident in 5 years for BP's USA operations.


3/23/2005 - Texas City, TX, one of the deadliest industrial accidents in history occurred when BP's 455790 barrel-a-day plant refinery exploded killing 15 refinery workers and injuring 180 more refinery workers and citizens within the area of destruction.

As the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) prepared to release their final report on the Texas City Refinery Incident. The CEO and chairwoman of CSB described BP's safety culture at the time of the incident as "absolutely terrifying" and went on to state that all levels of BP management were at fault. Read the report:

http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/us/bp_us_english/STAGING/local_assets/downloads/t/final_report.pdf

In the aftermath BP publicly announced their committment to improving safety. Yet in the next 3 years there were 3 more fatalities at the plant.


7/2005 - BP's Thunder Horse Platform nearly capsizes. Evacuated when hurricane Dennis churned through the waters of the GOM. Thunder Horse was found to be listing at 30 degrees not from a leak in her hull but from an incorrectly plumbed, 6-inch length of pipe that had allowed water to flow freely among several of her ballist tanks.


Spring 2006 - BP spilled over 200,000 barrels of oil onto the tundra of Alaska's North Shore. This was the first of several leaks that led to BP having to temporarily shut down half of North America's largest (at the time) oil field amd re-lay 16 miles of pipe.


April 21, 2010 - The Deepwater Horizon, leased to BP, suffers a catastrophic explosion and fire that resulted in the rig sinking in 5000 fsw. Investigators speculate that it was perhaps a blowout that caused the explosion, that resulted in 11 workers presumed dead, 17 more injured - 3 or 4 critically.

As BP is publicly pledging to clean up the spill in the GOM, as they reiterate their committment to making improvements to safety and operational methods a priority, one can only wonder how deep that committment really goes enlight of a whistleblower's allegations of engineering and safety doc**ent discrepencies aboard BP's Atlantis Platform. BP Atlantis Timeline:

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/BP-Atlantis-Timeline-final.pdf

One can't help but wonder where were ADCI, IMCA, the USCG and OSHA when all these alleged violations occurred.