Excerpt from: EHS Industry Solutions
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| November 10, 2006 | | BP settles lawsuit in Texas refinery blast | On the eve of a potentially embarrassing trial between British Petroleum (BP) and Eva Rowe, the lawsuit was suddenly settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. Originally Ms. Rowe wanted the lawsuit to go to court in order to make the BP documents public that led up to the March 2005 accident blast that killed both her parents. BP’s top priority was keeping those documents and information closed to the public. It makes you wonder what kind of information BP wanted to keep quiet, as they allotted $1.6 B dollars for the 1,000 cases that already settled out of court. The Texas City, TX BP refinery accident killed 15 people and injured 170 and is now the worst US industrial accident in the last 15 years. According to the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), faulty BP equipment and staff reductions contributed to the tragedy and BP has already been fined $21M by OSHA. BP plans to spend an additional $1B on upgrades to the refinery and is donating $34M to hospitals and schools to support process safety education. Seems like too little too late to me. by
Erin Swanson
ESwanson@enviance.com | | |
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