Accountability for health hazards

By: Damilola Babatunde

HAZARDOUS TO YOUR HEALTH: HOW THE CIVIL JUSTICE SYSTEM HOLDS CORPORATE POLLUTERS ACCOUNTABLE 

• In 1989, the Exxon Valdez struck a reef off the Alaskan coast and spilled more than 10 million gallons of oil over 1,000 miles of remote coastline. Exxon’s immediate response to what would become one of the most devastating environmental disasters ever to occur was to embark on a campaign to avoid responsibility that would last decades. Now, 20 years later, another tragic oil spill threatens long-term devastation on the environment. If history is any judge, BP will likely fight efforts to hold it accountable for years, if not decades.

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• Corporations have consistently responded to the environmental disasters they have caused by passing the buck for as long as possible. As time passes they know initial outrage will dim, media scrutiny will move on, political administrations will change, and the regulators will go through the revolving door to join the industry they once watched.

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• Laws passed in the 1960s and 1970s were supposed to protect the environment, but lax enforcement left corporations with little incentive to comply. Ultimately, trial attorneys were the ones who sought justice for communities destroyed by corporate polluters. Without the civil justice system, many corporate polluters would never have been held accountable for the disaster they caused.

Why We Need The Civil Justice SystemThe Environment

Oil Spills

Chemical Dumping

Dirty Air

Contaminated Water

Poisoning the poor

Hold Big Oil Companies Accountable for Cleaning Up Contamination

• Goal: Protect the safety of citizens by demanding oil companies clean up hazardous contamination from refineries

BP• The Kansas Supreme Court recently sided with oil giant British

Petroleum, leaving residents of the town of Neodesha to deal with the effects of contamination from a refinery site. In 2008 a Kansas district judge overturned a ruling in favor of BP, allowing residents of Neodesha to recover cleanup costs and damages from a dismantled oil refinery. The reinstatement of the original ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court reiterates the power multibillion-dollar corporations have over citizens, regardless of the damage done. In a time when oil spills and fracking are threatening the health and safety of citizens and the environment, it is necessary to demand oil and energy companies be held accountable. 

Reference

• "Hazardous to Your Health: How the Civil Justice System Holds Corporate Polluters Accountable ." Hazardous to Your Health: How the Civil Justice System Holds Corporate Polluters Accountable. N.p., 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.

• "Hold Big Oil Companies Accountable for Cleaning Up Contamination." ForceChange RSS. N.p., 2013. Web. 24 Apr. 2013.