From among all of the voices shouting about the President’s/Federal Government’s handling/lack of handling of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, one of the most notable complaints in recent days has been that the moratorium on deep water drilling is an additional, unfair burden on the state of Louisiana and on oil workers, beyond the already-devastating situation of the ongoing leak. I can certainly sympathize: I am also one of those regular, working-class Americans who has relatively little in the way of savings, certainly at least not enough to sustain me through six months’ worth of unemployment if I should suddenly be displaced from my job. I can imagine how tough it would be to be told that because someone else’s employer had failed in its obligation to provide safe working and/or environmental conditions, my own employer was being forced to lay off its employees while the notoriously-plodding federal government investigated the potential hazards.
Still, I can’t help but be inclined toward this “stop-and-consider” approach. It seems to me that little is being said about the eleven workers who died on the Deepwater Horizon when it exploded and sank, back in April. As one rare radio interviewee on the topic said, if this were a coal mining accident, we would have seen minute-by-minute updates on the status of the eleven (who were then missing but are by now certainly dead) and footage of the families gathered together to wait for news from the search. In this case, though, the continuing gush of oil into the Gulf of Mexico and the spread of oil and tar onto shoreline and into marshes has taken the spotlight. The first casualties of this disaster are all but forgotten in the fallout.
The fact is that no matter what hardships result from the lingering impact of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy, eleven men lost their lives on that platform. We need to know whether the practices, procedures, and equipment on offshore oil rigs are creating unsafe conditions for workers in the Gulf. We need to know whether the failures which occurred on this particular rig are likely to occur on other rigs under similar circumstances. We need to know whether our fathers, husbands, and sons who work on offshore platforms are in unacceptable and preventable danger when they go to work. If we have to stop drilling for a few months to make those determinations, so be it.
Because human life is worth more than human comfort. Yes, it is difficult to have no income, to live on savings (if one is even lucky enough to have any), to live on unemployment (as displaced oil rig workers will), to live on (even) public assistance. But if surviving a few months without pay ends up allowing these workers to go back to a safer workplace, it will be worth it. Offshore oil rigs are inherently dangerous; unreliable safety equipment and procedures should never be allowed to make a perilous situation more hazardous. And being poor beats being dead any day. Being poor beats being widowed. Being poor beats being fatherless. Trust me, I know.
Now, I am not suggesting that these workers won’t or shouldn’t be angry. They should. News today reveals that British Petroleum’s internal reports refer to what ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten calls “a systematic disregard for maintenance of their equipment. It’s a process they call ‘run to failure’ where they would use the equipment for as long as possible while investing as little effort and money in maintaining it as possible” (NPR News, June 10). The very phrase “run to failure” means that BP intended to allow equipment to operate until it was completely broken down, rather than stopping production periodically for scheduled and preventive maintenance. It doesn’t take a deep-sea biologist to understand that this policy, which presumably included safety equipment, is an accident waiting to happen.
Of course, just because BP acted negligently does not mean that all of the companies operating in the Gulf do. It is becoming crystal clear that BP has been putting profits before safety for years. But who here has reason to believe that other “big oil” corporations care less about production and profit than BP? I don’t. And, of course, it isn’t just worker safety that’s at stake (although in my opinion that is the primary concern); today, fifty-two days after the explosion aboard the Deepwater Horizon, oil continues to spew into the waters off the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida at the estimated rate of 19,000-25,000 barrels per day (no one seems to know exactly how much for sure, and BP has consistently under-represented the figure, according to most news sources), only about 15,000 barrels of which is being captured by BP’s “top hat” recovery apparatus. Crude oil and tar balls are washing up on beaches and in wetland areas all along the coastline, causing untold damage to wildlife and natural habitats. There is no telling how much damage is actually being done or how long the term of such effects will be.
A moratorium on new drilling in the Gulf of Mexico is a level-headed approach to moving forward. It is true that we don’t ground all planes when one plane crashes, or whatever else all the knee-jerk Facebookers are arguing in their (well-intentioned) defense of oil workers’ jobs. But the airlines are not in charge of airline safety. Clearly, we cannot rely upon the oil and gas industry to ethically measure the cost of production against the value of human lives and environmental responsibility; their determination on that topic is clear.
