A preventable catastrophe

It looks more and more like the environmental catastrophe brought about by the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and subsequent collapse could (and should) have been avoided if the people in charge weren’t greedy bastards and heeded the warning signs.
From the NYTimes.com:

Internal documents from BP show that there were serious problems and safety concerns with the Deepwater Horizon rig far earlier than those the company described to Congress last week.
The problems involved the well casing and the blowout preventer, which are considered critical pieces in the chain of events that led to the disaster on the rig.
The documents show that in March, after several weeks of problems on the rig, BP was struggling with a loss of “well control.” And as far back as 11 months ago, it was concerned about the well casing and the blowout preventer.
On June 22, for example, BP engineers expressed concerns that the metal casing the company wanted to use might collapse under high pressure.
BP documents released last week to The Times revealed that company officials knew the casing was the riskier of two options.
In April of this year, BP engineers concluded that the casing was “unlikely to be a successful cement job,” according to a document, referring to how the casing would be sealed to prevent gases from escaping up the well.
The document also says that the plan for casing the well is “unable to fulfill M.M.S. regulations,” referring to the Minerals Management Service.
On Tuesday Congress released a memorandum with preliminary findings from BP’s internal investigation, which indicated that there were warning signs immediately before the explosion on April 20, including equipment readings suggesting that gas was bubbling into the well, a potential sign of an impending blowout.
A parade of witnesses at hearings last week told about bad decisions and cut corners in the days and hours before the explosion of the rig, but BP’s internal documents provide a clearer picture of when company and federal officials saw problems emerging.
The documents show that in March, after problems on the rig that included drilling mud falling into the formation, sudden gas releases known as “kicks” and a pipe falling into the well, BP officials informed federal regulators that they were struggling with a loss of “well control.”
On at least three occasions, BP records indicate, the blowout preventer was leaking fluid, which the manufacturer of the device has said limits its ability to operate properly.
Bob Sherrill, an expert on blowout preventers and the owner of Blackwater Subsea, an engineering consulting firm, said the conditions on the rig in February and March and the language used by the operator referring to a loss of well control “sounds like they were facing a blowout scenario.”

So, the government agency that should supervise the oil companies didn’t do its job, sweeping warning signs under the rug and allowing BP to continue drilling even though this could lead to a “blowout scenario.”
And BP cut corners to save money, made risky decisions even though it knew they were the riskier of the choices it had, and shrugged at the warning signs that seem to have been numerous.
When are some heads going to start rolling?  Are we ever going to see some of these people behind bars?  Wouldn’t that, coupled with gigantic fines, be the only way to discourage oil executives from making the same careless decisions again?