Sunday, May 16, 2010 | 2:05 a.m.
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“It’s not my job!” was the refrain from the people handling the disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. While holding Senate hearings last week as to why this accident happened, BP pointed at Transocean, which then placed blame on Halliburton, and Halliburton in turn pointed to BP. We would call that a circular firing squad.
Doesn’t anyone assume responsibility anymore? When BP was asked previously if it could contain an oil spill, the answer was yes. Really, if that was the case, why is its approach to solving the oil spill an experiment? Why were regulations lifted that allowed safety features to be bypassed on offshore drilling rigs. The reasoning was based on cost. Eleven people were killed in the explosion and their bodies have yet to be found.
Once again, profits outweighed casualties and damage to the environment. The cost of fresh shellfish and other seafood will go sky high, if it’s even edible. Thousands of animals will and have died and damage to the coast line will not be reversible. Twenty-plus years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, parts of the Alaskan coastline are still damaged.
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