BP Trial Update VI

Standards, what standards?

As part of its defense against allegations the British Petroleum corporation was grossly negligent while managing the Macondo well operation, the then company executive in charge of Gulf of Mexico operations took the stand Tuesday to testify about his efforts to get the company's safety record back on track in 2008. British Petroleum was charged with a felony violation of the Clean Air Act in 2007 to which it offered to plea guilty a year later in exchange for a relatively small fine of $50 million*. The charges arose from a BP owned, Texas City refinery explosion of 2005 which investigation showed numerous safety regulation violations had occurred. Fifteen workers were killed by the disaster. Former Secretary of State James J. Baker III and his investigating panel concluded BP had a "weak safety culture". The plea offer is still being considered, but victims' families object to it.

Former Gulf Coast manager Neil Shaw wrote a company e-mail in 2007 in which he said safety was to be the "No.1 priority", and disputed the company's mantra "every dollar counts" was inconsistent with safety as a priority. He also disagreed with expert testimony given by Robert Bea, a civil and petroleum engineering professor at UC Berkeley. However, BP's former safety chief testified earlier that the internal investigation into the Macondo well blowout did not examine concerns the well was over-budget and behind schedule, or the effect those concerns had on the operation of the well; nor did it investigate the resignation of Kevin Lacy, former BP senior vice-president for drilling operations. Lacy testified via video link that he resigned from BP in 2009 after expressing concerns over the company's lack of a safety culture. Lacy sent a 2009 e-mail to BP's management expressing concern over its alleged preoccupation with the botton line. BP's drilling budget for the Gulf was cut from $250 million to $300 million while production increased 54% from 2008 to 2009. BP's investigation team was not allowed to talk to Transocean or Halliburton employees concerning the cause of the blowout. Of the team's eight key findings in its internal report to management, BP was found responsible for only one, and five findings concerned issues that occurred after the well blew out on April 20, 2010.

The blowout preventer manufacturer Cameron International was dismissed from the case last week after the judge hearing the case determined there was no evidence of Cameron's negligence or defective product. On Thursday, a New Orleans electrical engineer called by BP testified the preventer did not perform as designed because a 27 volt battery was depleted and without sufficient power to close the blind shear ram that should have cut through the drill pipe and seal the well. Another electrical circuit contained a solenoid incorrectly connected, so it also failed. The theory that the shear did not work because the drill pipe was misaligned was discounted by Arthur Zatarain, consulting engineer, and his testimony is consistent with testimony presented by other experts on the issue. Cameron recommended to its customers that batteries be replaced yearly, but Zataran testified that the 27 volt battery had not been replaced since 2007.

While the trial proceeds to a close sometime the end of this month and the third annirversay of the disaster approaches, conservationists are looking to the future of the Mississippi Delta region now that funds will be available for restoration projects. David Muth is the National Wildlife Federation's director of its program to restore wetlands damaged by the spill and hurricanes. The NWF  will receive a $2.4 billion payment as part of BP's plea agreement to criminal charges in connection with the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Muth says the Federation wants to insure that money is spent to achieve the best results for a degraded ecosystem. Half of that amount will be spend on rebuilding barrier islands and fresh water diversion projects in Louisiana. The Mid-Barataria Diversion is already out for contract bids, and is intended to divert freshwater and sediment to build wetlands in the Barataria Basin. Wetlands are an important buffer against storm surges as well as vital habitat for a myriad of wild creatures.

The Federation wants government officials to commit to spending 80% of money damages under the Clean Water Act allocated to ecological restoration. Wildlife is still suffering from the effects of the largest accidental oil spill in history. Just one example is the case of Y12, a sixteen year old bottlenose dolphin. He was caught near Grand Isle, a barrier island heavily oiled by the disaster. He was examined and found to be underweight and severely ill with signs of lung and liver disease, consistent with chronic exposure to crude oil found in the 31 other dolphins examined in the study. Seven months after his capture, his emaciated body was found washed up on the beach at Grand Isle. Six hundred and fifty dolphins have been found dead since the disaster, more than four times the historical average.

*the plea agreement was finally approved by the federal district court in March, 2009. Part of the criminal judgement entered against the company provided that if it committed any federal environmental or safety process crimes related to its Texas City operation it would be in violation of the terms of its three year probation.  BP failed to correct all the refinery's hazardous conditions within the time period allowed by its settlement agreement with the Occupational Health Administration.  Instead, it paid a large fine to OHSA for willful violations and failure to abate hazardous conditions.  Despite the obvious violation of its probation conditions, the DOJ refused to seek revocation of the company's criminal probation consistent with a the Charlantan's political policy to not punish corporations severely.  As one former refinery supervisor who lost eleven employees in the explosion put it, BP continues to "suffer extreme leniency."  BP sold the refinery to Marathon Petroleum Corporation for $2.5 billion last year.