Gulf oil disaster highlights further corporate irresponsibility

Following the explosion on the oil rig Deepwater Horizon and the subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, radio personality Rush Limbaugh asserted, "The ocean will take care of (the spill) on its own if it was left alone and left out there ... It's natural. It's as natural as the ocean water is."

Such assertions are not surprising coming from Limbaugh. It is troubling, however, that the chief executive of British Petroleum, Tony Hayward, espoused similar views.

The Guardian reported that Hayward claimed BP's oil spill is "relatively tiny" compared with the "very big ocean." Hayward told The Guardian, "The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume."

These arguments – or, shall we say, excuses – are unacceptable and serve only to bolster the insidious remarks made by Limbaugh.

Crude oil is, of course, natural. However, the mere fact that it is natural does not mean that it is not ecologically harmful.

Limbaugh falls prey to the type of naturalistic fallacy known as "appeal to nature" by equating the concept of "natural" with the concept of "good." He assumes that since oil seepage from the ocean floor occurs naturally it cannot be a bad thing.

He fails to grasp several obvious points here: that oil can indeed be harmful to organic beings; that oil seepage can thus be a negative event, regardless of how natural it is; and that massive oil contamination is harmful whether it occurs naturally or by human hands.

It should be clear that the naturalness of oil is not what is at issue here – it is a moot point.

What is at issue here is that this particular oil disaster was caused by humans – humans who could have taken adequate measures to prevent the accident or at least devised a contingency plan.

They failed to do both.

The most important issue is how to quell the onslaught of oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

The Guardian reported that Hayward promised BP would fix the disaster, which could surpass the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the biggest US oil spill in history. Hayward stated, "We will fix it. I guarantee it. The only question is we do not know when."

When? That is a good question indeed. It has been nearly a month since oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico at a rate of roughly 5,000 barrels per day, which remains a contentiously low estimate.

BP has shown in the weeks since the disaster that they had no contingency plan to deal with an oil spill of this magnitude.

The British energy giant has been able only to muster haphazard, partial fixes for blocking the oil leak – all of which have proven ineffective.

How long does it take to contain an oil leak? Correcting such a leak is undoubtedly a logistical nightmare from an engineering perspective, as the oil is spewing from a pipe approximately one mile below the water's surface.

However, even without a contingency plan in place, four weeks should have been enough time for BP to at least devise a coherent plan of action.

The USA Today reported BP did have an emergency response plan entitled "Regional Oil Spill Response Plan - Gulf of Mexico" that offered technical details on how to use chemical dispersant and provided instructions on what to say to the news media.

The plan, however, did not mention how to react if a deep-water well spewed oil uncontrollably.

It seems clear now, because of the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, that oil spill emergency response plans suffer from what Rep. Nick Rahall, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, referred to as a "failure of imagination."

BP executives neglected to consider the possibility of the current disaster and are using this failure of imagination to excuse their incompetence.

Their response to the oil spill has, overall, been both tragically incoherent and woefully inadequate.

Multiple emergency response plans should be an integral part of any dangerous, large-scale operation, even for worst-case scenarios.

The mere improbability of an accident such as the one currently savaging the Gulf of Mexico is not an excuse for failing to prepare for it.