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Vol. 74/No. 21      May 31, 2010

 
BP oil spill: Unfolding
ruin for working people
 
BY ANGEL LARISCY  
MAY 19—A month after a BP oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico killed 11 workers, neither the company nor the U.S. government has a solution to the massive oil leak on the ocean floor that is threatening the livelihood of millions and decades of environmental disaster.

There were early warning signs of problems aboard the rig that BP ignored, the Miami Herald reported May 14. For weeks pressure was building up in the well from the oil and natural gas beneath the ocean. Workers heard loud noises at least three times the day of the explosion as the gases were vented. In the final hours, a heavy gas cloud settled over the platform and birds flying above began to drop. Then gas seeped into the main engines, igniting them, and the rig blew up.

According to a study by the Center for Public Integrity, two oil refineries owned by BP are responsible for 97 percent of all flagrant violations found in the U.S. refining industry in the past three years.

As of May 17 BP said it is salvaging about one-fifth of the oil from the broken pipe on the ocean floor and pumping it into a tanker, leaving the remaining fuel to spew into the water.

Already the leak has had an impact on working people in the Gulf region’s fishing and shrimping industry. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service, the Gulf produces 73 percent of domestically produced shrimp and 59 percent of oysters. Large areas off the coast of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama are now closed to fishing and shrimping.

Normally in the middle of their biggest season, small fishermen, who already live paycheck to paycheck, find themselves without work. Many have resorted to leasing their boats to BP for the cleanup effort at about half of what they make during the height of the season.

Tracy Kuhns of the Jefferson Parish Association of Family Fishermen was interviewed for an article that appeared on the Web site TakePart.com, which covers environmental and other issues. She helps fishermen fill out applications to have their boats hired by BP to skim oil. She also organizes to get them gloves, rubber sleeves, and respirators with replaceable filters. “Initially they were sending people out with nothing, no preparation, and they were coming back covered with oil after spending a day trying to scoop it up and breathing it in,” she reported.

BP originally said 1,000 barrels a day were leaking from the broken pipe. Government officials later raised the figure to 5,000. The leak could “easily be four or five times” the government estimate, Ian MacDonald, an oceanographer at Florida State University, told the New York Times May 13.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a professor of marine sciences at the University of Georgia. Scientists have found one oil plume 10 miles long, 3 miles wide, and 300 feet thick in spots.

Downplaying the impact of the oil leak, Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, said in a May 14 interview with the Guardian newspaper, “The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”

“If they don’t stop that oil flowing way out there it’s coming into the wetlands,” Aaron Scott, 73, of Louisiana told the Miami Herald. “We’ll lose the crabs, the oysters, the fishing. We’ll lose our way of life,” said Scott, who has been a fisherman for 57 years.  
 
 
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