Process safety - 5 Years after the BP incident

On March 23rd, 2005, the worst industrial accident in the US for more than a decade occurred at the BP Texas refinery. 5 years after the incident a news article mentions the following:
“Since the disaster, the company has spent more than $1 billion on improvements at the refinery, and continues to invest more. It's spent another $1 billion or so settling about 1,000 civil lawsuits filed by the more than 170 workers injured in the blast and by families of the dead.
“Those systems require constant vigilance. You start to think you've got it fixed, and eventually you start to focus on other things. If you let your focus wander too far, you're system starts to slip without your realizing it.”
“The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board found in 2007 that the explosion resulted from a lethal combination of cost-cutting, a lack of investment in training and mechanical systems and a lack of vigilance in maintaining safety procedures. The company has implemented sweeping changes in process safety procedures and revamped how it operates refineries. Many of those changes have been adopted by BP's rivals as well.”
“The question that continues to dog BP and the refining industry: Has it done enough?It has rejected, for example, a Chemical Safety board recommendation that it add a process safety expert to its board of directors.”
“It took the explosion,” said Gary Beevers, international vice president for the United Steelworkers union, which represents more than 1,000 workers at the refinery. “As this industry has shown, it takes something terrible for changes to happen.”
My own observation of any big incident like this is that immediately after the incident there are a lot of things done. But the question is the sustainability of these actions. Time and again I have seen that unfortunately history tends to repeat itself unless top leadership are really and continuously committed to process safety.More and more boards of Chemical and refining companies are filled up with non technical persons, with the result that there is no one at the board level to explain to the board the repercussions of cost cutting without a proper assessment.
Read the whole article in this link