Recommended Reading if you have the Stomach for it

Poisoned Legacy recommended by Lady Grace 

The Human Cost of BP's Rise to Power.

  The author describes how BP (British Petroleum) failed to live up to its promises as both an environmentally conscious and a safety oriented company, resulting in the catastrophic explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, and other previous environmental disasters as well.


A page from this book

It is hard to imagine a corporation having a worse season for operations than BP had in the spring of the macondo well blowout, and not just because of the deep – sea leak that began on April 20.

At the same time the oil and gas was streaming uncontrollably into the Gulf south of New Orleans, BPs Texas City refinery was releasing more than a half – million pounds of potentially harmful chemicals, including 8 1/2 tons of cancer – causing benzene, into the air around the plant on the Texas coast southeast of Houston.

The leak began April 6 after a fire shut down a key component of the refineries alter cracker unit that breaks down crude oil.  When the hydrogen compressor that normally collects waste chemicals from the process failed plant manager said the excess fumes of event topped by a flare that burned off some, but not all, of the chemicals. The result was a steady stream of toxic gases spewing into the atmosphere around the refinery.

BP could have chosen to immediately shut down the altar cracker unit, but that would have meant stopping the process of an estimated 65,000 barrels of oil per day, with each barrel worth between five and $10 in profits. Instead, plant managers decided to keep production going allow the omissions to that while the hydrogen compressor was being repaired. As a result, the Lee continued for 40 days, until May 16 resulting in an estimated release of 583,000 pounds of chemicals, including 17,000 pounds of benzene, into the air, state officials said later.BP inform the state on April 7 that it had an "upset" at the refinery requiring some releases beyond its permit limits, but it wasn't until June that the company reported the full volume of access emissions.

one nearby resident later told the New York Times that the humans had a brutal effect on her neighborhood, although no one really knew what was happening. " We all became real sick – throwing up, diarrhea, couldn't keep anything down – and we just thought it was something that was going around,"said Khristina Kelley, who lived about a half-mile from the refinery with her husband and four children," But then everybody around here got it."

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