On Tuesday, federal prosecutors moved to drop manslaughter charges against two supervisors who were on board the Deepwater Horizon when it blew. A New Orleans judge also agreed the charges should be dropped, Ars Technica reports.
The move relieves Donald Vidrine and Robert Kaluza — who were the highest ranking supervisors on board the rig — of 11 counts of involuntary manslaughter, which they were previously facing RT.com reports.
The felony charges were dropped “because circumstances surround the case have changed since it was originally charged, and after a careful review the department determined it can no longer meet the legal standard for instituting the involuntary manslaughter charges,” the Justice Department reports.
The verdict is a steep reversal from three years ago. At that time then U.S. Attorney-General Eric Holder, in New Orleans, personally announced the manslaughter charges.
Not everyone is happy with the government’s decision.
Keith Jones, the father of Gordon Jones, an oil rig worker who died in the blast, voiced his dissent.
“As a result of this court proceeding today, no man will ever spend a moment behind bars for killing 11 men for reasons based entirely on greed,” Jones told reporters.
Vidrine pleaded guilty to allegedly violating the Clean Water Act and “admitted to negligently causing the massive oil spill that resulted from the disaster,” said Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr in a statement. This misdemeanor likely means 10 months of probation and 100 hours of community service.
Kaluza is fighting the same charge. He’s charged with a crime he didn’t commit, said his attorney Shaun Clarke, adding that Kaluza will go to trial to clear his name, RT.com reports. The case is slated for trial in February 2016.
Vidrine is due to be sentenced April 6, The Huffington Post reports. U.S. District Judge Stanwood Duval didn’t indicate if he will accept the recommended sentence of 10 months of probation, 100 hours of community service and $50,000 in restitution to fund work to repair damage from the huge spill.
The maximum sentence is a year in prison and a $25,000 fine per day, plus restitution. If the proposed sentence is rejected by Duval, Vidrine can withdraw his guilty plea.
Vidrine’s attorney declined to comment.
Prosecutors claimed that Vidrine and Kaluza botched an important safety test and ignored abnormally high pressure readings that indicated trouble ahead of the explosion of BP’s Macondo well. A statement that was part of Vidrine’s guilty plea acknowledged that this led to “underbalancing” the well, and also led to the explosions and fires on the rig, as well as the spill and the resulting damage.
While the human cost of this disaster was extensive, the environmental costs to wildlife were devastating.
The National Wildlife Federation reports that:
• In 2014, dead dolphins showed up on Louisiana coastlines in numbers that were four times greater than historic rates, and there is increasing evidence that these ongoing deaths are connected to the 2010 oil rig disaster.
• Estimates show that between 27,000 and 65,000 Kemp’s ridley sea turtles perished in 2010, and the annual numbers of Kemp’s ridley nests have declined each year since the spill.
• The disaster also killed 12 percent of the brown pelican population and 32 percent of the laughing gull population in the northern gulf.
• The eggs of white pelicans nesting in Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois have been found to contain oil and dispersants.
• Oil exposure has been shown to cause abnormal development in many fish species — including mahimahi, Gulf killifish and Bluefin and yellowfin tuna.
• Oil has significantly damaged coral colonies in five separate locations in the Gulf — three are deep sea, while two are in shallower waters.
• Oil has been found in deep water sediments in a 1,200-square-mile area surrounding the wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico.
Earlier this year, BP agreed to a record settlement totaling nearly $20 billion to states affected by the spill in the hopes of ending the legal drama, The Huffington Post notes. At the time, the company noted that the settlement would up its full monetary obligations to an estimated $53.8 billion.
