In an interview with the BBC, Tyrone Benton delivered a charge that he and some other oil workers saw the problems that would eventually cause the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Benton, who is black, was a worker on the Deepwater Horizon rig that had a leak in the well's blowout preventer. Benton claims that the leak was reported to BP weeks before the explosion that killed 11 workers and caused millions of gallons of oil to leak into the gulf.

Benton was stationed on the rig as a subcontractor before the explosion. The 20-year old man is suing BP for negligence, largely because he believes that the firm didn't respond to the reports properly, causing the disaster.

Even BP's own internal documentation reports that the company had significant safety problems. One of the major issues was the leak in the blowout preventer, which caused the spill. Instead of fixing the problem, the company simply shut down the bad blowout preventer, forcing the rig to rely solely on the second one.

"We saw a leak on the pod, so by seeing the leak we informed the company men," Benton told the BBC. "They have a control room where they could turn off that pod and turn on the other one, so that they don't have to stop production."

The blowout preventer is considered to be the most important safety device on an oil rig. It has a valve that can seal off an oil well in the event that something goes wrong. When the rig exploded, the second blowout preventer failed, leading to over 100,000 barrels of oil being thrust into the ocean each day since.

Professor Tad Patzek, a petroleum expert at the University of Texas, says that Benton's claims, if true, are serious.

"That is unacceptable. If you see any evidence of the blowout preventer not functioning properly, you should fix it by whatever means possible."

The BP oil spill, which originally appeared to be a standard corporate accident, is slowly turning into a free-for-all blast on how our government works, as well as quirky corporate relationships with political officials. We are also learning that BP was not a company that operated safely, and that this spill could have been prevented. Benton's testimony opens the door to criminal prosecution and will ultimately help to shape U.S. energy policy for decades.



Dr. Boyce Watkins is the founder of the Your Black World Coalition and the author of the new book, "Black American Money." To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered to your email, please click here.