“We all knew they would say that,” Bud McLeod told the Militant. “They never take responsibility, and they always blame us and the plant operators.” McLeod worked for contractors doing maintenance and other tasks at the BP refinery in Texas City up to the time of the explosion.

A week after issuing the report, BP backtracked. The company stated that while it stands by the report it should have explained its conclusions differently. The company statement says BP is taking disciplinary action, ranging from “warnings to termination of employment,” against workers it has deemed responsible for the blast.

The March 23 explosion was the third deadly accident at BP’s Texas City refinery in the last 20 months. This refinery is one of only two in the nation that has had three fatal incidents—the blast in March, a steam explosion that scalded two workers to death last year, and the 2001 asphyxiation of a maintenance worker. BP leads the refining industry in on-the-job fatalities over the last decade, with 22 deaths since 1995—more than a quarter of those killed in all refineries nationwide. Nineteen of these deaths at BP facilities occurred in the last 18 months. This figure includes the Texas City refinery workers, as well as those who died in seven other incidents, including one in Washington State in mid-May.

Despite the growing number of deaths and injuries, BP has paid a mere $20,000 in federal and state fines in connection with four of these fatal incidents.

BP’s May 17 report on the Texas City explosion ignores company responsibility for the cold-blooded decision to continue to release dangerous and flammable vapors from a ventilation stack at the refinery. When asked why the unit was not changed to a safer design, BP president Ross Pillari stated, “There is no documentation as to why this didn’t happen.”

Documents reported in the media, however, do show that the company twice rejected—in 1995 and 2002—recommendations to replace the 50-year-old vent stack with a flare system. Instead, the company rebuilt the stack in the isomerization unit in 1997.

According to the company’s own report, overheating of this unit led to the most recent deadly explosion. In weighing even temporary losses of profits against the gamble on losing lives, the company found it most cost effective to take measures that ended up sacrificing the lives of 15 workers on March 23.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home