Should BP be prosecuted criminally for the Texas City refinery explosion?
Two weeks ago, an explosion at a BP refinery in Texas City, Texas killed 15 people and injured 70 more. Last week, investigators announced that the day before the explosion, a small fire broke out in the same unit that blew up due to a valve leak. Nor was the disaster an isolated event. It was the third fatal accident at the Texas City BP facility in the last four years. In September 2004, two workers were burned to death and another was seriously injured. In 2001, a maintenance worker at the facility died after falling into a tank that had been shut down. Nationwide, BP’s facilities have had more than 3,565 accidents since 1990, ranking first in the nation, according to a 2004 report by the Texas Public Interest Research Group (TexPIRG). However, the Galveston County district attorney does not plan to open a criminal investigation into whether BP acted with any recklessness. “We have no reason to believe at this point that it was anything but an unfortunate industrial accident,” Moham
