Profitable pollution (1979)

From the July 1979 issue of the Socialist Standard

The main factor involved in accidents to oil tankers and in creating oil pollution at sea is the profit motive. “Pollution is an economic phenomenon . . . Deliberate discharges of oil, and the main causes of accidents to ships and offshore installations can both be explained by economic considerations”, writes Dr Viktor Sebek (New Scientist, 1.3.79).

An “inexplicable tragedy”
                   - Premier Lynch.

The Betelgueuze exploded at midnight while unloading at Bantry Bay. Forty-three crew and seven terminal workers were killed, and sixty-one families fled in small boats from Whiddy Island to the mainland. This ‘accident' was avoidable. From 1968 to 1977 tanker explosions killed 291 people, besides representing enormous financial losses to their owners. An inert gas safety system is now fitted to new oil tankers, but four-fifths of the 3,500 tankers now operating still do not have this system, nearly ten years after the danger of explosive gases became known. “Because of its age the Betelgueuze was not fitted with the inert gas safety system.” That would have cut into profits.

Jetty firefighting equipment checked in December was faulty and not subsequently repaired. Life rafts — the only means of escape from the jetty — had never been tested. Gulf Oil’s first five years’ profits at Whiddy were about £40 million. “We had a terrible tragedy. But we have to face one fact of life — business is business”, said a Gulf executive, explaining why Gulf is now sueing Total Navigation over the £30 million compensation.

Accidental Pollution
The ‘accident’ at the Sullom Voe terminal, when the Esso Bernicia collided in harbour, spilling fuel oil and causing the deaths of sheep and otters as well as thousands of rare sea-birds, was foreseeable and need not have happened.

Delay in using equipment, inadequate maintenance of emergency equipment, inadequate supply of available equipment, the lack of a fourth tug on standby when the tanker berthed — all combined to produce a predictable ecological catastrophe. “The possibility of an oil spillage always exists because of failure or malfunction of mechanical equipment or as a result of human failure . . .” a report predicted in 1976.

Deliberate Pollution
‘Operational’ pollution occurs when a tanker captain illegally dumps ballast water at sea, knowing that the terminal he is approaching has no ballast water treatment plant. When Sullom Voe opened in November 1978, its ballast water treatment plant was not expected to be ready until May 1979: during those months, ballast water dumping created a serious ecological problem. Yet the Load On Top system used by many tankers and the segregated or clean ballast systems fitted into new tankers prevent such pollution.

With the ballast water treatment plant at Sullom Voe not yet in operation, there was, according to a director of BP Tanker Co., “a financial incentive for a tanker skipper on a voyage charter to dump ballast when approaching Shetland and thereby take on more oil” Captain Lucas of the Mercantile Marine Service Association alleged that “very few of the world’s ports are equipped to handle the waste products from any ships, let alone tankers.”

Accurate pollution-measuring techniques have been developed and are in use. But enforcing pollution control presents problems: “The economic implications of these pollution control regulations to the major shipping companies are large, and intense international maritime political lobbying is now under way.”

Cutting Corners
Navigational errors, such as caused the Christos Bitas disaster off Pembrokeshire, are common. Near Sullom Voe there have been “repeated reports of tankers cutting corners”. In January, February and March large tankers have been observed within one to one-and-a- half kilometres of the coast, which is at all times difficult but especially hazardous in winter.

To Shetlanders, a tanker is “a floating disaster waiting for somewhere to happen”. Scientist Ritchie Calder declared that Whitehall’s policy is “government by catastrophe”. “All measures to control pollution inevitably reduce profit margins” comments Dr. V. Sebek.

Nuclear Power—Very Hush-Hush

Nuclear technology risks are aggravated by political factors. Government-imposed secrecy shrouds everything nuclear: in the early fifties the Official Secrets Act silenced press reports of “gross negligence during construction work at Windscale”. All Windscale (British Nuclear Fuels Ltd.) and Dounreay (Atomic Energy Authority) staff are ‘positively vetted’ by security; such installations are cloaked by the Official Secrets Act. Though Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights lays down the ‘right’ to publish information and ideas, this is always subject to “the interest of national security”. The same principle governs public disclosure of accidents, risks and the like in the Soviet Union, where people live next to nuclear installations “without any protest or without any knowledge of them”.

Fears of terrorism — sabotage of installations or theft of plutonium — increase the secrecy surrounding all nuclear installations. The ability to cover up negligence and to conceal even serious ‘incidents’ presents a risk to the whole community.

Energy production is a dirty business. But accidents in coal mines and oilfields do not put at risk the health of the human species for generations to come. Under capitalism, the social — political, economic and military — hazards compound the risk inherent in nuclear technology. “When you build a plant, you look to see whether there are any earthquakes. But you don’t know about social earthquakes.” (Dr. Jungk).

Aldermaston

Staff at the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment were last year found to be exposed to dangerous levels of plutonium contamination. Outdated monitoring methods were in use, the number of safety staff was inadequate, only a hundred personal air samplers were in use, with 250 still on order — although these were recommended in 1972. Levels of plutonium in the air were found to be over the International Commission for Radiological Protection limit in every building, sometimes four times the 1CRP maximum. The Ministry of Defence delayed introducing chest monitoring until ten years after this was in routine use elsewhere.

A 1976 Health and Safety Executive inspector raised only one minor safety point. But if the HSE had demanded improvements the AWRE enjoys Crown Immunity from prosecution. Unfortunately, workers do not have ‘Crown Immunity’ from lung cancer.

Livermore, USA

Livermore, like Aldermaston a nuclear weapons development centre, is sited near San Francisco, right on top of an active earthquake fault. Although a large earthquake is believed imminent in California, evacuation plans are “inadequate and unrehearsed”, claime Friends of the Earth. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission closed down a nearby reactor but cannot control Livermore.

Karen Silkwood

vs. Kerr McGee Corp, Oklahoma

The case of Karen Silkwood exposed the sloppy and dangerous practices at Kerr McGee in producing plutonium fuel rods for nuclear reactors. She provided evidence that faulty rods were habitually approved, and told how dirt was simply “swept up with a broom”.

Windscale’s Wastes

Windscale, where BNFL reprocess spent fuel rods from power stations, is constipated. Many fuel rods are corroding under water. Reprocessing machinery keeps breaking down. One hundred gallons a day of radioactive sludge has been leaking from silos since 1976. The site is “nasty". No sound method has yet been found of dealing safely with nuclear wastes.

Harrisburg: “Nuclear accident raises dividend fears” (Financial Times)

Human error causes scores of incidents at American nuclear power stations. At Harrisburg a valve was left open accidentally. It later emerged that there was not one operating engineer on the site.

Repercussions were widespread. A complete population health check has started. Plants in Canada, Japan, Belgium and the UK (Dungeness) have been reported closed for checks. In the USA, all ten Babcock and Wilcox reactors have been shut down.

Many questions remain unanswered. How much radiation was released? What is the risk? How safe is ‘safe’ — the ICRP and many scientists now think zero is the only ‘safe’ level of radiation exposure. Who is telling the truth?

The near-meltdown at Harrisburg was closely described in the film The China Syndrome: Newsweek dismissed this contemptuously as based “on fantasy rather than fact”. The cover-up industry has been hard at work persuading the media to ‘cool it’. The choice for American capitalism is between growing dependence on the hazards of nuclear power with growing costs and increasing public hostility, or a return to ever-costlier dependence on Arabian oil.

The USA’s soaring trade deficit leaves little choice. Nuclear generating costs are half those of oil, less than two-thirds those of coal-fired plant. In the balance-sheet. costs weigh against profits. People do not appear on boardroom balance-sheets. The board is answerable to shareholders, not to the community. A shareholder’s concern is his dividend, not the health of humanity.

We do not claim that there could be such a thing as zero-risk technology. But technical problems are small compared with political and economic factors. Capitalism’s disaster record is no accident.

Charmian Skelton

Postscript

Our first article discussed some air crashes. “The only thing that forces a Federal Aviation Authority ruling is when enough people get killed.” The FAA has now grounded all USA DC 10s. We also pointed to the appalling fire risks of polymeric materials used in furnishings. The Woolworths fire in Manchester gives us a reminder of how lethal these cheap materials are: ten people died.

References

Oil pollution — New Scientist. 1.3.79. (Dr. Sebek is secretary to the Advisory Committee on Oil Pollution of the Sea.)
‘Betelgueuze’ The Guardian, 9.1.79; The Observer. 14.1.79; New Statesman. 1.6.79.
‘Esso Bernicia - Sullom Voe Environmental Impact Assessment Report, June 1976, cf. New Scientist.

19.4.79 and 26.4.79.
Deliberate pollution — New Scientist. 29.3.79 and 19.4.79.
Cutting Corners — New Scientist. 1.3.79 and 26.4.79.
Nuclear power — Franks Report, 1972, quoted in Nuclear Prospects by Flood and Grove-White (FoE), 1976; Zhores Medvedev in New Scientist, 17.5.79; Jungk in New Scientist, 5.4.79. Aldermaston — New Scientist, 7.12.78.
Livermore — New Scientist, 26.4.79.
Karen Silkwood Panorama, BBC1. 5.3.79.
Windscale — The Listener (from Horizon), 26.4.79 and The Listener, 7.6.79.
Harrisburg — The Nugget File 1950-1976, cf. New Scientist, 1.2.79; John Lyons, general secretary. Electrical Power Engineers — The World This Weekend, BBC Radio 4, 27.5.79; The Economist. 5.5.79; Herald Tribune, 31.5.79; Newsweek, 19.2.79 and 2.4.79; New Scientist, from 5.4.79 to 31.5.79.