First arrest in connection with BP Gulf explosion

April 30, 2012 by Fred Hosier

Posted in: BP, criminal charges, Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views

The U.S. Justice Department has filed its initial charges in connection with the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster on April 20, 2010. Now a former BP employee faces prison time and fines.

Former BP engineer Kurt Mix was arrested on charges of intentionally destroying evidence requested by federal authorities investigating the explosion that killed 11 workers.

The two obstruction of justice charges come with the potential for Mix to spend 20 years in prison and pay a fine of up to $250,000 for each count.

The Justice Department says Mix, a drilling and completions project engineer for BP, is accused of deleting a text string from his iPhone containing more than 200 messages with a BP supervisor. Some of those messages were recovered. In one text, Mix stated, “Flowrate — over 15,000.” That number refers to the number of barrels of oil per day (BOPD) that was flowing out of the well. At the time the text was sent, BP said the flow rate was 5,000 BOPD.

The investigation is ongoing. Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department “will hold accountable those who violated the law in connection with the largest environmental disaster in U.S. history.”

A federal investigation into the disaster found that several BP practices contributed to the explosion and deaths, including:

poor risk management
last-minute changes to plans
failure to respond to critical indicators, and
insufficient emergency response training.

A year ago, Bloomberg News reported that federal authorities were considering manslaughter charges against BP in connection with the workers’ deaths.

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Tags: BP Gulf explosion, Deepwater Horizon, Justice Department

alecfinn

BP should be investigated for poor safety for its employees not only this the Deepwater Horizon but the plant in Texas that blew up twice killing folk and released cancer causing chemicals into the environment rather than turn off a compressor and damage production.
To me all of the above makes for a case of bad safety practices by BP.
http://painsert.com GOTCHA!

He’s a small fish used in a ploy to bring in the real culprits! They’ll offer him a plea deal to turn state’s evidence and testify against his superiors – wait and see.
Obviously, someone told him to get rid of his texts, and that will surface – just as the oil did. There was criminal actions taken by many, and in this case the general public was not duped into believing what BP was claiming as far as flow rates go. Most of us had an inkling that it was much worse than portrayed. Now we have a settlement with BP (both premature and unacceptable to most Americans), a fishing industry that has been devastated, new shrimp with no eyes, and a government that did not take a strong enough stand to minimize this damage caused by greed more than anything else!