BP Safety Violations: OSHA Says Company Has 'Systemic Safety Problem'

HOUSTON — A Washington-based research group says two BP refineries in the U.S. account for 97 percent of "egregious willful" violations given by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The study by the Center for Public Integrity says the violations were found in the last three years in BP's Texas City refinery and another plant in Toledo, Ohio. In 2005, 15 people were killed in an explosion at the Texas City refinery.

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab says BP has a "systemic safety problem." He told The Associated Press BP has not adequately addressed the issues, despite being fined more than $87 million.

Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA David Michaels says similar problems are pervasive throughout the U.S. petroleum industry.

Comments

[Dr Juan]

03:50 PM on 05/18/2010

Obama has an oportunity to ballance the budget here! All he has to do is confiscate BP wells that pose a serious national environmental threat, correct the technical problems and use oil and gas revenues to pay off the national debt. After all the PB is never going to change. Britts havn't changed in 200 years, Queen and all.

[IMSickOfAllOfEm]

07:46 AM on 05/18/2010

What we are seeing is a direct effect of the Bush-Cheney regime.

Under Bush, OSHA officials were shut out by political appointees, and strategic choices were frequently made without input from experienced safety professionals. Regarding OSHA, Bush had only one priority - that was to prevent the agency from doing its job.

It will be a long and painful journey to get OSHA back into the business of doing the job for which the agency was created.

[IMSickOfAllOfEm]

07:24 AM on 05/18/2010

It's cheaper to pay the fines than to correct the safety issues. It's time to hold these losers personally responsible for the death and destruction they cause. They need to be doing some serious jail time.

[straightuptalker]

07:00 AM on 05/18/2010

I find it mind-boggling that any oil company is allowed to drill offshore without tried and true methods of containment and reclamation, before the fact, rather than play out these comedy of errors by BP (not so funny) that continues to fail. Even their emergency practice runs at simulated oil spills were a failure...they couldn't get it right then and still don't have a clue how to get it done. As my old Dad used to say...it's the oil companies and banks that run the world...looks like he was right all along.

[sane one]

01:48 AM on 05/18/2010

For some interesting info, go to" Go to www.seedsofevolution.org

[sven1olaf]

12:34 AM on 05/18/2010

where is OSHA on the shores as these fishermen trying to protect their livelihood are getting poisoned helping BP

http://www.southernstudies.org/2010/05/air-tests-from-the-louisiana-coast-reveal-human-health-threats-from-the-oil-disaster.html

[rollingrock]

01:55 AM on 05/18/2010

OSHA is probably too busy having coke and hooker parties to bother with doing their job. Not unlike the MMS. Is there any regulatory agency left that hasn't been bought off by big oil? I think not!

[AuntWilma]

12:22 AM on 05/18/2010

There are systemic safety problems everywhere I've been.

[Scabby]

11:56 PM on 05/17/2010

Now the kicker, if you work in BP's corporate offices, you violate safety regulations if you descend a flight of stairs without holding onto the handrail. True story.

[AuntWilma]

12:44 AM on 05/18/2010

And rightly so. Stairs account for a large percentage of all on-the-job injuries.

[OldHeathen]

11:50 PM on 05/17/2010

Party is over B.P.

[manray05]

11:47 PM on 05/17/2010

"Similar problems are pervasive throughout the petroleum industry". That says all we need to know.

If anyone says we should "drill, Baby, drill" then immediately assume they are a liar and paid spokesperson for the petroleum industry. We have the opportunity to change our nation, the only thing standing in our way is the vested interests of our corporations and their propaganda

This comes from both sides of the poltical spectrum. Both Democrat and Republican are bought and paid for.

[Mike2875]

11:34 PM on 05/17/2010

This is BS...

think baloon angioplasti, the technology exists in the larger scale. It exists in the BOP technology!

Insert the tube; inflate a baloon type device to seal the pipe; let and/or assist the pressure of oil flow to flow up to the surface.

lets go folks, get it done or there is no more shrimp at the buffets!

[OldHeathen]

11:54 PM on 05/17/2010

I have a feeling they don't want to plug the leak, I think they are trying to capture the oil!

[sven1olaf]

12:33 AM on 05/18/2010

that is a guarantee my friend.

sad but true

[saranaghati]

10:56 AM on 05/18/2010

You've got a very large group that agrees with you. Someone suggested yesterday that we plug the leak with BP executives.

[AuntWilma]

12:40 AM on 05/18/2010

I had similar thoughts, but having been an engineer for 34 years I hesitate to second-guess the people who have all the information.

You can see from the one photo that the end of the pipe is deformed, so an ordinary Dresser coupling couldn't be used, but something similar made to expand inside the broken pipe might be in order. I found info about a patent on an internal expansion coupling, but there wasn't much there to go on, and I found no such fitting offered for sale.

I also don't know what kinds of mechanical operations they can do with the equipment they have down there at those depths. It seems to me like these kinds of situations should have been anticipated and equipment made available for such an emergency before any drilling was done at such depths. Whenever we were designing a system the team would get together and play devil's advocate so we wouldn't get caught with our pants down when something went wrong.

[inthelandoftheblind]

05:59 AM on 05/18/2010

That's how we'd expect a scientist or engineer to think - that's the way a pragmatic professional would approach such a project!

How could there be this level of incompetence,& then - have no contingency plan?

[landofopportunity]

10:58 PM on 05/17/2010

BOYCOTT BP, ONCE AND FOR ALL.
DO NOT BUY, GAS, COFFE, CANDY ANYTHING AT A BP GAS STATION.
THEY ARE ENVIRONMENTAL AND FINANCIAL TERRORISTS

[manray05]

11:49 PM on 05/17/2010

It's the entire industry. Give up your car, now that would be a solution.

[JaxReader]

11:14 AM on 05/18/2010

It is, but we can make an example to show our intent by boycotting BP right now, specifically.

[Scabby]

11:59 PM on 05/17/2010

BP doesn't make their money at BP gas stations, they make their money speculating on oil prices. The gas you put in your car at a BP station is not necessarily from oil that BP drilled. Same goes for every other gas station. Fill up at Shell and there is a good chance you are using gasoline made from BP oil. A boycott of BP gas stations would simply put those independent businessmen who own the station out of business. BP would keep rolling along.

[Scabby]

12:05 AM on 05/18/2010

And I should state I'm all for punishing BP, but a boycott will not work. I think the corporate death penalty would do the trick.

[JaxReader]

11:15 AM on 05/18/2010

But it would send a message and that's really important as well. Lets kill them on many different levels, but the boycott will be the most symbolic.

[Artemis34]

10:47 PM on 05/17/2010

If they are for corporate personhood

then

I'm for corporate death penalty.

Seize the company when they kill people, jail the execs and seize their ill-gotten personal and family assets.

Hey, we seize the assets of suspected drug dealers w/o due process and even if it is a bit of pot. These execs are way more dangerous.

[WeCanDoMore]

11:14 PM on 05/17/2010

fanned and faved. You know they will hire blackwater to protect them.

[moutonnoir]

12:16 AM on 05/18/2010

Oh boy.. I suppose we would then be fighting, again, a terrorist group of our own creation.

[SuperV]

11:18 PM on 05/17/2010

Cosign!

[timhere]

10:45 PM on 05/17/2010

they only allow us to live so we can buy their gas

[WeCanDoMore]

11:14 PM on 05/17/2010

fanned and faved, sadly.

[manray05]

11:50 PM on 05/17/2010

Unfortunately there is a modicum of truth to that statement.

[Michelle Farrar]

10:38 PM on 05/17/2010

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