On April 20, 2010, a catastrophic oil spill took place in the Gulf of Mexico. It was due to BP’s Macondo well blowing out. 11 people were killed, and the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen—not to mention thousands or millions of non-human animal species—were extremely adversely affected. So great was the damage to the area, and to areas that intersect with it, that the full extent of the damage is arguably still not fully understood. This paper will describe the environmental challenge and the different stakeholders who were affected by the disaster. It will also briefly consider the value systems at work in discussion of, and relief efforts concerning, the oil spill. Finally, at the end of the paper suggestions will be made concerning what could and should have been done to prevent this horrific tragedy. The thesis of the paper is that the disaster could and should have been avoided.
The first question to be addressed is what are the various entities (‘stakeholders’) that were affected by the disaster. One scholar describes the situation thus:
Eleven crew members of the Deepwater Horizon [the ship that was associated with the Macondo well] drilling rig were killed, others were injured, the livelihoods of thousands of fishermen were impacted, countless marine animals and organisms were destroyed, and marshes and beaches in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida were fouled. (Griggs, 2011, p. 57).
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For marine life especially, the disaster had and continues to have a kind of cumulative effect. Not only are individual organisms killed or maimed by the oil but animals who rely upon these organisms for food are also adversely affected; as are the animals that, in their turn, prey upon these animals—and so on all the way up the food chain. There is probably no way to quantify the damage. What we do know is that it is horrific and will take decades to recover from, if full recovery is possible at all.
Some more specific kinds of damage are the following. Different hydrocarbons from the oil spilled into the sea and on beaches will for some time contaminate fish and shellfish (Solomon and Janssen, 2010, p. 1). Human beings, though probably not the animal species hit hardest by the disaster, will suffer as well. There is no way to prevent partially contaminated fish or shellfish, for example, from ending up in restaurants and in supermarkets, where they will be consumed by people. There is evidence that such consumption will lead to high cancer risks (Rotkin-Ellman, Wong, and Soloman, 2012, p. 157). Seawater itself was of course adversely affected, which will make problematic both the use of the water to drink and to breathe in, for many forms of marine life. It has been shown that, as one would expect, even seawater samples that do not appear contaminated to the naked eye nevertheless contain poisons as a result of the spill (Sammarco, Kolian, Warby, Bouldin, Subra and Porter, 2013, pp. 131-135).
It is nearly self-evident that the value systems of companies such as BP do not consider marine life, or even the potential hazards to human beings, that their activities endanger as important or significant. It would be surprising if it were otherwise, since BP and other companies like it make billions of dollars through collecting and selling a natural resource that is both limited in amount and harmful to the environment when consumed in its various ways. A natural sense of environmental justice has difficulty gaining purchase in the context of such attitudes and practices (Goldstein, Osofsky, and Lichtveld, 2011, p. 3).
What could or should have been done to prevent the disaster? The proximate cause of the explosion and the spill was determined to be defective cement in the well walls. This is obviously a fault in BP itself. However, there are two other entities to blame as well. One is the failure to respond promptly and effectively on the behalf of the various relevant agencies of the United States’ government. The other is insufficient legislation to accomplish two goals: First, to require companies such as BP to adhere to stricter safety standards. Second, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, while it cleared up a number of questions concerning, for example, who was responsible for dealing with disasters of this sort, it arguably did not go far enough either in assigning responsibility or ensuring adequate funding for the relevant agencies (Griggs, 2011, pp. 59-60).
No one denies that there are difficult problems concerning both the prevention of disasters of this nature and providing an adequate response when they do occur. What I would have done differently is require and enforce much stricter safety standards for companies like BP; ensure that it is clear enough who is responsible for the clean-up and other activities related to it that the response can begin immediately, before the situation worsens; and make certain that all of these agencies are adequately funded. Failure in any of these respects is a failure of environmental justice.
- Goldstein, B, Osofsky, M. & Lichtveld, M. (2011). The Gulf Oil Spill. New England Journal of Medicine, 364, 1334-1348.
- Griggs, J. W. (2011). BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Energy LJ, 32, 57-79.
- Rotkin-Ellman, M., Wong, K. & Soloman, G. (2012). Seafood contamination after the BP oil spill and risks to vulnerable populations: a critique of the FDA risk assessment. Environmental Health Perspectives, 120(2), 157-161.
- Sammarco, P., Kolian, S., Warby, R., Bouldin, J., Subra, W. & Porter, S. (2013). Distribution and concentrations of petroleum hydrocarbons associated with the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill, Gulf of Mexico. Marine Pollution Bulletin, 73, 129-143.
- Soloman, G. & Janssen, S. (2010). Health effects of the Gulf Oil Spill. JAMA, 24, 1-3.
