Letter to the Editor,

BP may finally be ready to face the music about the 2010 Deepwater Horizon

oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Reports are buzzing that BP is negotiating a deal with Attorney General Eric Holder in Louisiana. This deal involves BP officially taking responsibility for the largest manmade environmental disaster in American History.

While we are happy to see BP take the blame for their mishap. However, there are three big problems with the deals that is being proposed.

First, when the contract for the off shore rig’s construction was approved by government, BP  claimed it had protocols in place to deal with any safety issues. However, when the disaster happened, engineers claimed that an accident of this magnitude had never happened at this depth. So either BP executives were misleading to government regulators or someone in washington never bothered to double-check the specs.

Second, If BP is absolved of any criminal penalties both now and in the future it will impossible to prosecute years later if we find out that the claims of full recovery from this disaster are as underestimated as BP’s estimates related to leaking oil during the Gulf oil spill. Furthermore, recent reports have stated that BP’s reluctance to inform the government and the media in a timely manner with spill data may have contributed to the damage.

Third, the offshore rig that suffered the damage was reopened less than a year after the disaster without any assurances that the original problem had been fixed or regulations were being passed to prevent another disaster.

The millions of barrels of oil that spilled into the Gulf are still effecting the eco-system, but thanks to the $20 billion  cleanup and restitution effort BP has already paid, some progress has been made to return the Louisiana coastline and surrounding shore communities to normalcy.

The fisherman have returned to the water to fill up their nets with what we’ve been told is safe. However, the verdict is still out on how safe the fish really are. the problem with the BP spill is the fact that it took place at over 18,000 ft. and under high pressure. Therefore, the damage cannot be totally evaluated by cleaning pools of oil of the surface. Tests are still being done on the long-term effects of the oil spill and we may not know just how damaging this disaster was for years to come.

So, before we allow BP completely off the hook for a disaster that may still be damaging our eco-system, we need to speak up and let our legislators and off-shore drillers know that Americans want assurances that safety protocols will be put in place before the next disaster.

Yours Truly,

Truth Jackson

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