Black Beaches and Bayous

The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster

Edited by Lisa A. Eargle, Ashraf Esmail

Publication date:

02 November 2012

Length of book:

332 pages

Publisher

University Press of America

Dimensions:

229x151mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9780761859789

Black Beaches and Bayous: The BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster provides a multidisciplinary, international perspective on one of the major disaster events within the United States during the last ten years. Scholars from various disciplines including sociology, political science, ecology, psychology, and criminal justice investigate the different components and issues associated with this event. The contributors address topics such as the social and historical context of fossil fuel use, steps within the technological disaster process, and similarities and differences between this disaster and other technological disasters. They also discuss the social and psychological impacts on Gulf Coast residents, the transformation of natural ecological systems, changes in risk assessment, and media portrayals of the Obama administration and its response to this disaster.

Figures
Tables
Foreword by Dr. George L. Amedee
Preface by Dr. Lisa A. Eargle and Dr. Ashraf M. Esmail
Acknowledgments

Chapter One—The U.S. Oil Industry’s Safety Record and the Need For More Domestic Oil Production
Jude Clemente

Chapter Two—Applying Technological Disaster Process Models to the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster
Lisa A. Eargle, Ashraf M. Esmail, Jas M. Sullivan, and Shyamal K. Das

Chapter Three—Beyond Petroleum in the Gulf of Mexico: The Characteristics and Consequences of Catastrophe
John Barnshaw and Lynn Letukas

Chapter Four—Corporate Catastrophes from UC Bhopal to BP Deepwater Horizon: Continuities in Causation, Corporate Negligence,
and Crisis Management
Tomás Mac Sheoin and Stephen Zavestoski

Chapter Five—The Effects of Oil Spills on Ecological Systems
Jeffrey R. Wozniak

Chapter Six—The Gulf Oil Spill, Ecological Debt, and Environmental Justice in Louisiana: Lessons From Sociology
Timothy J. Haney

Chapter Seven—A New Geography of Trouble
Daina Cheyenne Harvey

Chapter Eight—Ecological Identity and Disaster Recovery in an Oil-Stained Landscape: Current and Future Policy Implications
DeMond Shondell Miller, Jason David Rivera, and Brandon Eric Fleming

Chapter Nine—The Crude Awakening: Gulf Coast Residents Reflect on the BP Oil Spill and the 2010 Hurricane Season
Michelle Meyer Lueck and Lori Peek

Chapter Ten—The Ninety-Day Storm: Mississippi Community Response to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
Jason S. Gordon and A. E. Luloff

Chapter Eleven—Disaster Vulnerability: The Differential Impact of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster Among Alabama’s Gulf Coast Residents
James Hawdon and John Ryan

Chapter Twelve—Disaster Phases, Structural Vulnerability and Crime
Kelly Frailing and Dee Wood Harper

Chapter Thirteen—Hazard, Outrage and Locality: An Analysis of Two Oil Spills
Amanda K. Goddard, Kenneth A. Lachlan and Patric R. Spence

Chapter Fourteen—Resisting Corporatism: Citizens Fight Back Against the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Disaster
Stan C. Weeber

Chapter Fifteen—Disaster Distrust: Risk Assessment, Citizen Science and Technolegal Debates in the BP Oil Spill
Sabrina McCormick

Chapter Sixteen—The President, the News, and the Oil Spill: An Examination of National and State Newspapers’ Framing of Obama and His Administration’s Response to the Deepwater Horizon Gulf Oil Spill
Jas M. Sullivan and Meghan S. Sanders

Editors
Contributors

The solid research presented in Black Beaches and Bayous not only helps us understand the dynamics of ‘na-tech’ disasters, but more importantly, it can help us prepare for what inevitably will be the next one.