Two weeks before the blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, the huge, trouble-plagued BP refinery in Texas City, Texas spewed tens of thousands of pounds of toxic chemicals into the skies.
The release from the BP facility here began on April 6 and lasted 40 days.
A 2005 explosion at the same refinery killed 15 workers and four more workers have died in accidents since then. Last year, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined the company $87 million for failing to address safety problems that caused the 2005 blast.
In the July 23, 2010 issue of the
Texas Observer, an editorial takes the stance that "since the Supreme Court considers corporations to have personhood, maybe it's time we see BP for what it is: an unreformed criminal."
[photo by Lance Rosenfield, used without permission from ProPublica]
read more...
