Reaping riches from Texas’ enormous new oil and gas field, the Eagle Ford Shale Play, may not come without a high price. It seems the extraction process called “hydraulic fracturing,” also known as “fracking,” could be polluting the state’s water supply.

For many years energy companies knew of no way to extract oil and gas effectively from shale rock. Then fracking and what’s known as horizontal drilling enabled them to tap these resources. And with a wide swath of South Texas harboring oil and gas beneath its shale, that process has sparked a massive boom in drilling.

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It turns out working among heavy machinery, toxic elements, fire hazards and high-seas weather isn’t all that makes offshore jobs dangerous. Workers on gas or oil rigs also are killed or injured getting to and from work — not by the freeway, but by helicopter. 

A recent study shows that, for 26 years, an average of six helicopters yearly crashed in the Gulf of Mexico while servicing offshore oil or gas rigs or platforms. Most often the cause has been engine failure, but weather and pilot error also contribute — and go hand in hand when a pilot takes off despite bad weather warnings.

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Rescuers have found seven of the 10 offshore oil workers who evacuated a liftboat in the southern Gulf of Mexico between Veracruz and Merida ahead of Tropical Storm Nate. One worker later died in a hospital, but the others are in stable condition.

Two bodies also were found, but they have not been identified. A search for the remaining missing men continued.

The 10 offshore workers used a small escape life raft to evacuate the liftboat, or jack-up rig, in the Bay of Campeche Thursday. Mexican state-run oil company Pemex and the Mexican navy began a search, which Sunday yielded the discovery of seven workers 51 miles from shore.

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The Texas Supreme Court has not acted as a friend to the valiant men who work oil and gas rigs. Instead, it seems to favor the wealthy oil companies which hire these workers and place them in harm’s way.

How’s that true? It’s true because of a 2007 court decision known as Entergy Gulf States, Inc. v. Summers, NO. 05-0272.

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You’d think last year’s Deepwater Horizon explosion of a mobile offshore drilling unit would have sparked Washington to fix such problems. But in many cases, offshore dangers persist as “business as usual.” That leaves maritime workers who risk their lives to fend for themselves if endangered by an accident on the high seas.

Well, not entirely by themselves. They also can engage an experienced Jones Act lawyer from Jim S. Adler & Associates to press their case for financial compensation. Also known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, the Jones Act provides protections for injured seamen, sailors and maritime workers, including those on mobile offshore rigs and platforms.
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BP executives not only lead a company whose wanton disregard of caution led to April 20′s Gulf of Mexico oil spill — the worst environmental disaster in America’s history — but also betray an acute case of foot-in-mouth disease.

In May, while millions of gallons of oil gushed into the Gulf, BP CEO Tony Hayward told a British newspaper that he expected Americans’ claims for oil spill damages via lawsuits to be “illegitimate.”

“This is America –  come on,” Hayward said. “We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.”

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As the cost of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil spill grows, many of its victims, from failing businesses to fishermen and their families, may wonder if they can be compensated for their losses. After all, the bill already is in the billions, with estimates ranging from $37 billion to $70 billion.

But BP, formerly British Petroleum, has the means to foot that bill. The world’s third-largest energy giant had net profits of more than $10 billion combined in the last quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of 2010. In fact, BP has generated over $100 billion in profits, after expenses, in the last five years.

Just last year, BP had revenues of almost $250 billion, with $16.8 billion in profits. BP also owns huge oil reserves which could be converted into cash by selling them to other energy companies. How huge? The oil it owns that’s still in the ground reportedly is worth $13.5 trillion at today’s prices.

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President Obama’s fact-finding visits to Alabama, Mississippi and Florida Monday underscore at least one thing: the BP oil spill disaster off the coast of Louisiana isn’t impacting just that state, but also the entire Gulf of Mexico region, including Texas. And that region is being devastated with battered businesses.

Obama also plans to address the nation about the crisis Tuesday night. Meanwhile, the White House is pressuring BP to set up an escrow account for paying off oil spill damage claims.

Such claims are likely to come from those who might otherwise make a living from shrimping, fishing and related businesses, from hotels, motels, restaurants and other tourism enterprises to gas stations, food retailers, food preparers, packers, truckers and others. Sadly, oil spill damages are making their survival difficult, if not impossible.

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BP CEO Tony Hayward is adding galling insult to devastating injury. Rightly facing billions of dollars in costs to clean up BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill and to compensate Americans for huge business losses to come, Hayward has pre-emptively attacked future American oil spill damage lawsuits by branding them “illegitimate.”

“This is America — come on,” the well-tailored head of London-based BP, formerly known as British Petroleum, told the Times of London. “We’re going to have lots of illegitimate claims. We all know that.”

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The oil business rakes in many billions of dollars in profits while you pay high prices at the gas pump and try to feed your family. But imagine how much more galling it will be to fishing, tourism and other business along the Gulf of Mexico coast as the economic fallout of last month’s Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill hits home.

As it stands now, British Petroleum, or BP, which was operating the doomed oil platform, has a $75 million cap on payments for non-cleanup and containment costs. In other words, if Louisiana’s $3 billion fishing industry is ruined, or if the Gulf Coast’s $100 billion tourism industry is staggered, they can stand in line to try getting a fraction of that cost from the company which seems to have caused it through negligence.

Fortunately, the Obama administration is trying to correct this problem, which was created by the 1990 Oil Pollution Act. Indeed, the administration is working with Congress to lift the $75 million cap to pay for oil spill damages, in order to help those who suffer financially in Gulf Coast states Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida.

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