{"id":7140,"date":"2010-10-26T16:49:14","date_gmt":"2010-10-26T20:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/?p=7140"},"modified":"2010-11-20T17:47:51","modified_gmt":"2010-11-20T22:47:51","slug":"oil-spills-seminar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/2010\/10\/26\/oil-spills-seminar\/","title":{"rendered":"Oil Spills and Responses Discussed at Special Energy Seminar"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"poster-Sawyer-Energy-Fall-w\"<\/a>The Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year was the result of a system of \u201ccomplacency, collusion and neglect\u201d \u2013 the same factors that were responsible for the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) in Alaska\u2019s Prince William Sound 21 years ago, according to Boston College Law Professor Zygmunt Plater.<\/a><\/p>\n

Prof. Plater, who chaired the legal task force of the Exxon Valdez Commission after the famous 1989 oil spill, was the featured speaker at a special energy seminar on Oct. 26 titled \u201cTough Lessons from Oil,\u201d co-sponsored by the Department of Geography and Environment<\/a>, and the Clean Energy and Environmental Sustainability Initiative (CEESI)<\/a>, and the Sawyer Seminar Series <\/a>in the Pardee Center for the Study of the Longer Range Future.<\/a> BU Environmental Law Adjunct Professor Rick Reibstein<\/a> introduced Prof. Plater. Prof. Cutler Cleveland<\/a> of the Geography and Environment Department and an energy expert who has been closely monitoring and writing about the developments in the Deepwater Horizon spill,<\/a> also participated.<\/p>\n

Prof. Plater said the report of the Exxon Valdez Commission, which was completed in 1991, found there were systemic problems in oil industry operations and the government oversight mechanisms that made a major oil spill inevitable. He said while the report suggested changes to address many of the lessons learned
\nfrom EVOS \u2013 such as the need for mandatory emergency response planning and preparation and strict standards governing the use of chemical dispersants in clean up operations\u2013 many of the report\u2019s recommendations were either never adopted or ignored. \u201cIt\u2019s a terrible sense of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu,\u201d he said the Gulf\u00a0 of Mexico oil spill, the response and clean up operations.<\/p>\n

Prof. Plater is a lead organizer for a symposium at Boston College Law School <\/a> on November 12 called \u201cLearning from Disaster: Lessons for the Future from the Gulf of Mexico,\u201d where leading experts in the science, law and politics regarding the oil industry and oil spills will gather to discuss ways to make sure the lessons from both spills can be put to use \u2013 and avoid repeating similar problems \u2013 in the future.<\/p>\n

For more information on Pardee Center’s Sawyer Seminar Series, go here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To read more on Sawyer Seminar #1 and #2, go here<\/a> and here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico earlier this year was the result of a system of \u201ccomplacency, collusion and neglect\u201d \u2013 the same factors that were responsible for the Exxon Valdez oil spill (EVOS) in Alaska\u2019s Prince William Sound 21 years ago, according to Boston College Law Professor Zygmunt […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1731,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[355,84,60,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7140"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1731"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7140"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7357,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7140\/revisions\/7357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardee\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}