Deja Vu All Over Again

In Bhopal, India in December 1984 a pesticide plant operated by Union Carbide released enough methyl isocyanate (i.e. cyanide) to expose over 500,000 people and kill over 15,000. The ground water in the region is still contaminated. No one has been prosecuted. The investigation found:

--Staffing at the plant had been cut to save money. Workers who complained about codified safety violations were reprimanded, and occasionally fired.
--No plan existed for coping with a disaster of this magnitude.
--Tank alarms that would have alerted personnel to the leak hadn't functioned for at least four years.
--Other backup systems were either not functioning or nonexistent.
--The plant was equipped with a single back-up system, unlike the four-stage system typically found in American plants.
--Tank 610 held 42 tons of MIC, well above the prescribed capacity. (It is believed that 27 tons escaped in the leak.)
--Water sprays designed to dilute escaping gas were poorly installed and proved ineffective.
--Damage known to exist, such as to piping and valves, had not been repaired or replaced because the cost was considered too high. Warnings from U.S. and Indian experts about other shortcomings at the plant were similarly ignored.

In the fifties The Hooker Chemical Company sold land to the government (for one dollar) with the secret objective of escaping environmental responsibility. Over 100 homes were built at The Love Canal. Cancer and birth defects ravaged the community and it had to be evacuated.

We can and do make double hulled tankers, but they cost more, and a double hulled Valdez would impact executive bonuses. Corporations have their priorities, as shown by the locked doors that incinerated over 200 girls in the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire. One would think we might have learned from the Savings and Loan fiasco, Enron, or Worldcomm. Yeah, these guys do the right thing.

Just this week we've learned about a Tylenol plant where drugs were manufactured without the ability to inspect the chemicals used, resulting in super potent batches of infant's Tylenol that had to be recalled. Inspectors found filthy conditions including incubators covered with dust and debris and filters designed to clean the air that were saturated with dust. Drums used to transport raw materials to plant were contaminated with a bacteria identified as B. cepacia.

The 17 page inspection report

The gutting of regulation and oversight started by the Reagan administration and taken to levels of collusion if not outright incest during the Bush atrocity has fostered the woeful neglect and grotesque irresponsibility that occurs when the insatiable greed of corporations goes unchecked. Unless stopped, oil companies trash the environment, banks produce financial meltdown, and drug manufacturers poison us. They will take every shortcut, cut every corner, bend every law, and laugh at possible disaster with reckless abandon for as long as they can. What do they care, and why should they? When it comes to The Corporation, we can spend what it takes to regulate, or we can spend what it takes to clean up the catastrophe.

To truly wake us up, perhaps it will take an Armageddon like event, say a complete financial meltdown that throws the country into a deep recession and costs over a TRILLION to fix. If not that, then perhaps an environmental disaster equal to ten Valdez spills that takes out the entire gulf of Mexico for three decades.

Oh, wait.