Running the risk
Posted on | September 6, 2010 | 2 Comments
So this week, I’m in Hamburg for the bi-annual shipbuilding and ship machinery behemoth that is SMM and have been kindly asked by Jochen Deerberg to speak at his new environmental conference that runs parallel to the exhibition.
As my regular readers know I feel that there are still a number of environmental risk management lessons to be learned from the Deepwater Horizon disaster and this forms the basis of my speech.
At NAMEPA, we are concerned about these “lessons learned”; the management of risk, in terms of oil spill prevention, means among other things that the right measures be taken to avoid disaster in the first place.
Prevention and remediation go hand in hand. Planning therefore begins before the spill, to avoid it and to have a seamless response process in place. What was done after April 20, why and how the process worked, and what needs rethinking, will be studied and debated for some years to come.
It is clear that a more enforceable system of assessment and management of risk factors is needed. There is no understandable reason — except cost cutting – for BP to have incurred $40 billion or more in liabilities; or for there to have been loss of life; or serious damage to several major industries, from petroleum to shellfish; or vast environmental harm; or the possible destruction of a company with hundreds of thousands of investors and eighty thousand employees; — except for its failure to embed an effective safety management system when and where it mattered.
But bean-counters seldom have remorse; quality, safety and risk management will often have no place in a corporate budget unless the law compels otherwise, and imposes severe penalties for noncompliance.
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2 Responses to “Running the risk”
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September 6th, 2010 @ 9:46 pm
What I find tragically ironic is that DOJ will investigate and prosecute seafarers for illegal environmental discharges at sea and yet no one at BP and associated partners have yet to answer for their complicity to this horrendous disaster. If oil executives had to spend 8-12 months away from their families without the opportunity to work, I think they would take this situation more seriously. As Tony said, “I just want to get my life back.” That’s what many detained seafarers want. But they don’t own luxury yachts.
September 6th, 2010 @ 9:52 pm
What I find tragically ironic is that DOJ will readily investigate and prosecute seafarers for illegal environmental discharges at sea and yet no one at BP and associated partners have yet to answer for their complicity to this horrendous and criminal disaster. If oil company executives had to spend 8-12 months away from their families in a foreign country without the opportunity to work, I think they would take this situation much more seriously. As BP Tony said, “I just want to get my life back.” That’s what many detained seafarers want. But they don’t own luxury yachts and may never work again. Sorry, Tony.
The Rev. Canon James D. Von Dreele
Seamen’s Church Institute of Philadelphia & South Jersey