BP is giving a bad name to both the British and petroleum, and as the horror in the Gulf of Mexico unfolds on TV every night, I keep hoping Ryan Seacrest will appear and say it is all a big reality show engineered by media goofballs to boost ratings.  Alas, there are numerous goofballs to be found, media and otherwise, but this is no ratings ploy.  We may be witnessing the undoing of the petroleum-based culture we have so merrily depended upon since gasoline was 25 cents a gallon, by an ecological catastrophe with no visible end in sight.

We need to understand that BP, the Bad Person (our Supreme Court recently ruled that a corporation is a “person”) of the moment, is far from being alone in its disregard of the dangers of drilling.  I had what might be called a “BP moment” nearly a decade ago, and it taught me what all of us are learning now – big oil companies invest mightily in production of oil and meagerly in protection of workers and our environment.

On September 11, 2001 (yes, that day), my client Clint (not his real name) was working aboard a drill ship operating in well over 5,000 feet of water in the Gulf of Mexico.  He was part of the “ROV” (remote operated vehicle, an unmanned submarine similar to what is being used in the efforts to fix what BP has broken) crew.  The drill ship was operated by a company other than Transocean for an oil company other than BP.  ROVs were launched from a platform extended from the deck with a hand crank.  Clint was extending the platform, and it went off track.  Clint had built up a lot of momentum, and when the platform went off the track, it took Clint’s shoulder with it.  He suffered an injury that will plague him for the rest of his life.

Here are the underlying facts.  The drill ship had state of the art technology. It was kept in position by thrusters fore and aft.  On the bridge, a scope featured an icon of the ship inside a box that represented the drilling zone.  If the ship icon went outside the box, a connector on the riser (pipe) running from the rig to the floor of the Gulf would break, preventing a disruption in production.  Once the ship was back in position, two ROVs would mate the two sections of the riser, and drilling would resume.  It was amazing, futuristic, like something out of Star Trek.

Contrast that Space Age technology to the Stone Age hand crank that injured Clint.  It was designed by an “engineer” who had a PhD from an “internet university,” one that did not require any classroom time.  If the drill ship operator or the oil company had any regard for the health and safety of Clint and his coworkers, they would have never allowed that platform, or its designer, anywhere near the ship.  However, because it did not directly relate to drilling, it was not their problem.

What is playing out a mile below the surface of the Gulf, and on the shores of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, is BP’s disregard for what can happen when things go wrong.  All the money went into production technology; protection technology was ignored.  BP was after profits, so 21st century solutions were employed to drill.  Safety and the environment were no more than afterthoughts, so solutions for a blowout and spill were from the the 1970s.  Now BP is trying to engineer on the fly to bridge a 30-plus year gap in technology, and it is not working.

Clint’s experience shows BP is not alone in its disregard for the safety of workers and the environment.  I expect a number of other oil companies and drillers are extremely lucky they are not in BP’s extremely dirty shoes.

Lawyers and politicians will hold BP accountable for its errors.  However, if we are going to continue to “Drill Baby Drill,” we must make sure that for all oil exploration, protection technology keeps up with production technology.