A United States judge rejected BP’s appeal last Thursday to pay a lesser amount than the original civil fine of $13.7 billion for its involvement in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion.
And while this has given me some renewed faith in the U.S. justice system, I am still disturbed by the two-faced approach BP has taken towards this spill. After spilling more than 200 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP took a hard stance on its intended commitment to the Gulf.
In fact, BP’s CEO at the time, Tony Hayward, released out a video where he stated BP’s intentions to clean up its mess.
“BP has taken full responsibility for cleaning up the spill in the Gulf,” he said. But BP hasn’t taken full responsibility for cleaning up the spill.
The sad truth of the matter is that BP only took responsibility while the media spotlight was on it. Sure, they made those commercials where employees were cleaning oil off birds, showing their ?“commitment to the Gulf.”
But when it comes to actually paying its debts, not only to the American environment but also the American people in the region, BP is only committed to its profit margin.
A report by Doug Inkley of the National Wildlife Federation published in April 2014 shows we are nowhere near a clean Gulf of Mexico.
“The oil is not gone” Inkley said. “There is oil on the ?bottom of the Gulf, oil is washing up on the beaches and oil is still on the marshes.”
The fact that oil itself is still there is disconcerting on its own; however, the truly horrific part of this is the loss of animal lives to oil-contaminated waters. The report stated that more than 900 bottlenose dolphins have been found dead or stranded in the oil spill zone, a much higher number than the average expected to be found.
This isn’t the only loss from the spill. Untold billions of dollars were also lost in tourism and seafood production, a vital industry in the Gulf region.
And yet people have completely forgotten about this tragic event. If anything, the fact that BP can even consider asking for a lesser civil punishment shows the ridiculously short length of the modern ?attention span.
I’d very much like to blame this on the Internet and television killing our ability to focus, but honestly the fault lies completely at our feet.
BP wrecked the gulf environment and handicapped fishing economies. This isn’t something we should simply let go after some time has passed.
Reparations must be paid, and the judge in this case was absolutely right in denying BP’s request.
kevsjack@indiana.edu
