Finger Pointing

Congressional hearings are scheduled for the Louisiana Oil Spill. Now the finger pointing begins. "It's not our fault," says BP. "It was that darn blow-out preventer." The manufacturer of the blow-out preventer says, "It's not our fault. It was the outfit that operated the rig. They didn't install our device properly." The outfit that operated the rig says, "It's not our fault. We followed accepted industry practice."

Apparently, it was no one's fault.

How, then, are we to insure that something like this doesn't happen again? The government of India has the answer

In 1984, a fertilizer plant operated by Union Carbide in Bhopal, India exploded. An estimated 3,000 people died in its immediate aftermath and resultant toxin releases may have killed ten times that many. Union Carbide's response was, "It's not our fault. It was sabotage. It was native Indian contractors improperly installing safety relief devices. We followed accepted industrial practice."

The Indian government's response was, "We are filing criminal charges against Union Carbide. The first Union Carbide exec that steps off a plane in India will be immediately arrested and imprisoned for trial. (By the way, the trial will be held in Bhopal under our laws. Good luck getting acquitted. You've heard of The Black Hole of Calcutta? That will be Club Med compared to what we have planned for you).

A shock wave went through the American Chemical Industry. I was working on three projects at the time and was informed, "Hold it right there. Corporate requires an immediate and complete safety review. Sure, it takes time and will cost money, but as good corporate citizens, it's our duty. Also, we don't want to get arrested."

From that point forward, every project got an intense Process Hazards Review. For one of my projects, the PHR extended its schedule by 25% and cost $250K in safety stuff that seemed superfluous, but in the 26 years since Bhopal, there has not been a single disaster at an American-designed chemical plant.

Is off-shore drilling inherently hazardous? Can it be made safe? Based on Bhopal, one way to insure that "accepted industry practice" works is to hold criminal charges over the head of corporate decison-makers.