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 Crude oil and natural gas have over the last hundred plus years
become critical to our way of life and economy. Not only do they satisfy a huge
chunk of our energy needs (heating our homes, generating power, and fueling our
cars), but crude oil derivatives are found in many consumer products such as
plastics, detergents, and cosmetics. Oil rig workers are the ones responsible
for finding and providing this important resource.
Unfortunately, oil exploration is a dangerous business, and
has a long history of work related injuries and fatalities. As the Houston Chronicle
bluntly puts it, "The boom that has brought prosperity to Texas has left a
trail of death and devastation for many of the more than 100,000 workers in oil
and gas exploration-related jobs." That's a rough legacy…
In the last ten years, worker safety has not improved. In 2012,
the death toll from the industry in Texas was 65, a 10-year high and 50 percent
higher than 2011. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 663 workers
were killed in the drilling and fracking industries from 2007 to 2012 nationwide. OSHA
investigations of accidents in Texas in the last six years found violations in
78 percent of cases.
 It's no surprise, given the heavy machinery used, that oil and
gas drilling is a dangerous field; what's disturbing is that more hasn't
been done to make it safer. Injuries and fatalities are caused by a range of
problems, from the collapse and failure of outdated equipment to the collapse
of workers from heat exhaustion. Some of these are generic safety problems that
can be recognized during inspections, but some of them require industry
knowledge that many OSHA inspectors don't have.
And OSHA has failed to adequately regulate onshore drilling,
even after the offshore drilling disaster of Deepwater Horizon in 2010 that
killed 11 and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil. A major accident like this gets a
lot of attention and causes bigger ripples than a number of
smaller incidents which (added up) do more damage. The enforcement power of OSHA officials is also limited, and
there are often difficulties finding and obtaining access to a site once an accident
is reported.
What seems to be needed are some industry-specific
regulations that keep oil and gas operators honest about prioritizing
safety in
the field. In the end, we're not talking about statistics on an OSHA
factsheet
or names on a newspaper, we're talking about people; people with lives
and families. Industry has a responsibility to ensure it puts the safety
of
its workers first. That doesn't mean accidents don't happen; what it
means is
preventable accidents don't happen, and there are preparations in place
to respond to everything else.
Sources:
Drilling
Boom, Deadly Legacy - The Houston Chronicle
Image (oil & gas rig sunset) from photoshelter.com
Image (drilling rig workers) from News
Inferno
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Re: Dangerous Drilling - Oil & Gas Rig Safety
