by Jonathan Hiskes
The Deepwater Horizon rig, pre-explosion and pre-tipping.Photo: TransoceanReuters is reporting that
the 11 workers missing after an explosion on a Gulf Coast oil rig have been
found safe.
An explosion on a drilling rig 50 miles off the Louisiana
coast late Tuesday night forced the evacuation of more than 100 workers and left
the whereabouts of 11 in question. Seven others were critically injured and
taken to hospitals, the New York Times reports.
But the 396-by-256-foot rig is “leaning badly” and in danger
of tipping over, according to a local parish official. That can’t be good for a
marine ecosystem, even one accustomed to drilling, spills, and all manner of
heavy industry.
This comes within weeks of:
The awful coal-mine
explosion that killed 29 men under the criminal safety record of Massey
Energy CEO Don
Blankenship.
The crash
of a coal freighter into the fragile Great Barrier Reef as it tried to take
a shortcut from Australian mines to Chinese furnaces.
The Tesoro oil refinery explosion that killed five workers in Washington state.
The spillage
of 18,000 gallons of crude oil from a Chevron into a canal in the Delta
National Wildlife Refuge, also in Louisiana.
All in all, it’s been a pretty terrible month for fossil-fuel industry
workers, defenders of the energy status quo, and organisms unlucky enough to
live near coal, oil, or their shipping routes.
This isn’t to say accidents can’t happen within the clean-energy
industry—installing offshore wind farms must have its own risks, though they
lack the combustible materials of a drilling rig. The point is that these human
welfare costs should absolutely inform our national energy project. All the more reason to move to safer sources.
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