BP Settlement Avoids Day in Court with People Hurt by Spill

Saturday, March 3, 2012 by Common Dreams


Oil giant BP announced late on Friday that is has reached an out of court settlement with thousands of individuals who were injured financially or physically by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010. The spill, caused by poor drilling practices and seemingly defective equipment, was the largest in US history. The estimated figure of the settlement is $7.8 billion, but there is no cap, and the money will be disbursed by an independent claims administrator. The deal does not the mark the end of BP's legal challenges, nor will it please everyone in the Gulf.

Meanwhile, as BP settlement details emerge, Al Jazeera has spotted a large oil sheen near the infamous Macondo 252 well.

If the settlement figure sounds at all impressive, note that in just nine months of 2011 BP posted profits of $15.9 billion.

According to the Associated Press, "BP said it expects the money to come from the $20 billion compensation fund that it previously set out. According to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust, current total trust assets are approximately $9.5 billion."

Suzanne Goldenberg reporting for The Guardian, writes, "With one major settlement achieved, BP will probably redouble its efforts to reach a deal with the federal government over fines related to the spill."

"I'd like to make sure this never happens again. Somebody has got to hold BP's feet to the fire. They have just gotten away with throwing money at problems, but that doesn't get rid of the problems." -Dean Blanchard, Louisiana Shrimper

BP said the $7.8 billion would include $2.3 billion for the Gulf's seafood industry.

It is those fishermen and the communities built around the industry that have been most devastated. They are the least pleased with BP and the announced settlement. Dean Blanchard has been an outspoken critic and advocate for the crippled industry, as the BBC reports:

Mr Blanchard spent 30 years building up a business that sold ice and diesel to boats, then bought and sold the shrimp they harvested.

They year 2010 was to be a bumper harvest: he had seen off local and international competition, bought new ice machines and the price of shrimp was good.

But things did not work out.

"There's only one reason to come down here: to fish, and there's no more fish. BP killed the fish," he says.

"We're down to one restaurant and one gas station. And the gas station shuts on Tuesdays. I've never seen this place like this before, never."

Quick Money, Delayed Impacts
Environmentalists join fisherman in their disappointment as they warn that the full impact of the oil spill may not be realized for years, and the premature settlements are the way for oil companies like BP to escape responsibility for future claims that consider the full damage wrought by the spill. Again, the BBC:

How long BP's environmental responsibilities will last here is anybody's guess. When the Exxon Valdez tanker dumped million of gallons of oil onto the Alaskan shoreline in 1989, 13,000 miles of coast was despoiled.

That did not happen in Louisiana. In a desperate attempt to protect Gulf beaches - and, say critics, BP's bottom line - dispersants were dumped on the spilt oil here before it made land.
"Honestly, we don't know," says Aaron Viles, deputy director of the Gulf Restoration Network, of the prospects for recovery. "If you look at the Exxon Valdez, which is the only thing we can really compare to when it comes to the volume of oil, what we do know is that it took four seasons for their big herring fishery to collapse commercially. 

"It didn't happen immediately. It takes a while for these sub-lethal impacts to work their way through the ecosystem and to have an impact. So we are watching very anxiously."

And Blanchard, speaking to Goldenberg, worries that the punitive aspect is lost on an oil company awash in cash.

"I want my day in court," he said. "If they can get off with just paying the money – well, they've got plenty of money, they are not really going to learn a lesson.

"I'd like to make sure this never happens again. Somebody has got to hold BP's feet to the fire. They have just gotten away with throwing money at problems, but that doesn't get rid of the problems."

But, as Goldenberg continues, BP is not out of the woods yet.

The federal government, and the state governments of Louisiana and Alabama, are also pursuing claims, although the federal government is believed to be actively negotiating with BP to reach a deal over civilian fines for environmental damage done during the spill. If BP is found guilty of gross negligence those fines could reach $17bn. 

BP is in a legal battle with the other companies that were involved in the runaway well: Transocean, which owned the oil rig, and Halliburton, which cemented the well. Those legal brawls, over the share of the costs of covering those damages, could continue even after the claims have settled.

Gulf Shrimpers Find Oil In Reopened Fishing Areas (2 stories)

Governnment Says "Shut Up"
Sierra Club Alleges Areas Were Solely Reopened to Limit BP's Liability
Published on 08-16-2010 | Washington's Blog

While the government says that the oil is gone, shrimpers say its still there.

The Press-Register reports:

Opening state offshore waters to fishing and winding down the cleanup effort on the coast is premature, said Louie Miller, state director of the Mississippi Sierra Club.

"We've got shrimpers out there saying there is oil out there," Miller said. "We had a meeting Wednesday night where we had over 150 shrimpers... who are saying there is oil out there and these underwater plumes are varying in size and shape. This stuff is obviously moving around out there."

***

[William Walker, executive director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources] "If you are not going to validate what you are saying through accepted scientific protocol and approaches, then quit talking about it without any evidence what you are saying is true," Walker said.

In other words, shut up.

Obviously, gulf shrimpers have a strong motivation to have everyone think that the shrimp is safe and the oil is all gone. They wouldn't be speaking out unless the problem was fairly bad.

Indeed, the Sierra Club accuses the government of reopening oiled fishing grounds to limit BP's liability:

The existence of oil is irrefutable, Miller said. Oil has reappeared on beaches in Alabama, Petit Bois and Horn islands and continues to wash ashore in Louisiana, he said.

Miller said there also is evidence of submerged oil.

"It is a weird thing. It is like strands, this black water, as they are calling it. It is like strands that are about three to four times the thickness of human hair. These things can be about foot-and-a-half, to five- to six-feet-long."

Miller said the assumption is oil that has been dispersed.

"To open up these waters, in my opinion, is nothing more than to limit the liability of BP to pay claims," he said.

"Because now they can deny any claims after the time at which these waters were opened back up," Miller said.

PBS Newshour also covered the shrimpers' distrust of the government's claims that all is well:

PBS: [Vice president of the Louisiana Shrimpers Association Acy] Cooper says despite government claims that most of the oil is gone, there’s plenty of it still on the bottom.

COOPER: I went out there and we made about four or five passes with the wheel, with the boat, stirred up the mud, and before you know it, oil was coming up. So these are the kind of areas that we need to distinguish where it's at, and these are the new places we need to keep closed. We don't need to open this. Keep them out of there.

(Video here). And see this.

Is the Sierra Club right? Are still-oiled fishing areas being reopened solely to limit BP's liability?

Are fishing areas instead being reopened to try to save the Gulf fishing industry (even though local fishermen and shrimpers would rather have dangerous areas remain closed so that Gulf seafood's reputation isn't permanently destroyed)?

Or is it just part of the same old attempt to cover up the severity of the crisis?

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Louisiana Fishermen Slam Claims that Oil Almost Gone, Seafood Safe
Fishing grounds are full of oil-soaked marsh grass and tarballs, with shrimp season set to open next week, locals say
by Jacoba Charles - Aug 11th, 2010

HOPEDALE, LA.— In the small towns of coastal Louisiana, the widespread consensus is that the oil is far from gone.

Fishermen return from working on cleanup crews or from recreational angling trips with stories of crabs whose lungs are black with oil, or of oysters with shells covered in sludge. They take photos and carry tarballs home like talismans to show what they have seen. They talk about their fears with anyone who will listen, and often their voices are tinged with panic.

Yet a government report released last week by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said that 75 percent of the oil has been cleaned up, dispersed or otherwise contained. And the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reports that of all the samples of seafood that have been tested since the oil spill, none have shown evidence of contamination.

While some in the coastal seafood industry agree with these assessments, a majority seem to view the news with a sense of betrayal.

"The cleanup isn't even close to being done," said Karen Hopkins of Dean Blanchard Seafood, which accounts for about 11 percent of the U.S. shrimp supply, on the barrier island of Grand Isle.

"The last thing I want to do is scare anyone away from the seafood down here," said Dawn Nunez, standing at the counter of the shrimp wholesale business and deli she owns in the tiny fishing town of Hopedale. "But if I’m not eating it or feeding it to my children, I can’t advise anyone else to eat it either."

On their dock across the street, Dawn's husband Marty Nunez pulls a clump of oil-ridden marsh grass out of a plastic bag.

"There's people fishing where this is at – or worse than this," he said. "I can't understand how they say things are getting back to normal."

Nunez surreptitiously picked the grass while working as part of BP's Vessels of Opportunity cleanup operation on Monday. For him the oil-soaked grass is a symbol of a lurking threat. Like many other people living along the coast, Nunez is confident that vast quantities of oil remain in the environment, despite highly publicized announcements to the contrary.

"Our fishermen bring home grass and tarballs and then we watch the news and they say there is no sign of oil," said Dawn Nunez. "Where did it go? Where did millions of gallons of oil go if it's not in the Gulf?"

A widely held theory is that the 1.8 million gallons of dispersants that were sprayed during the cleanup operation caused the oil to sink to the bottom.

"I've been working with oil all my life," said Brian Zito, a commercial fisherman on Grand Isle. "Dispersant is like a soap, and if you wash your hands in a bucket your water will be all white and soapy and fine. But let that bucket sit there for a few hours and see what happens – all that oil is going to come back together."

When they start trawling for shrimp or dredging for oysters, fishermen fear that the oil will get stirred up again.

For now that fear is largely untested. Although 5,144 square miles of federal waters affected by the oil spill had been deemed safe as of Tuesday, little of that good news applies to Louisiana. The state's three main fisheries are crab, oysters and shrimp – but the shrimp season doesn't open until next week. And crab and oyster fishing is almost entirely shut down because of the spill, as are most of the nearshore fishing grounds relied on by Louisiana's shrimpers.

But perhaps the biggest problem faced by the state's commercial fishermen is that they don't trust their own product. Even when the government decides they are allowed to fish in the marshes again, many say they are going to wait.

"I know what's out there and I'm not going to mess up my equipment with oil," Zito said in an often-repeated sentiment. "You can't even ride back there in a boat without stirring up tarballs, let alone put a net in the water."

Trawling for shrimp involves dragging a heavy chain, called a tickling chain, across the bottom of the marsh, lake or ocean. Shrimp that live in the muck swim up, and get scooped into the waiting net. And if oil is on the sea floor like the fishermen fear, that will get stirred up as well.

And if there is any contamination of the seafood, there is a very real chance that the individual fishermen could ultimately be held responsible. Past lawsuits filed by restaurant customers have made this possibility seem very real.

"We are going to have to buy product liability insurance on a product that we've never had to worry about before," Hopkins said.

Perhaps because of this, demand for Gulf Coast seafood is down. Marty Nunez said that the processor he has sold to for years called to warn him they wouldn’t be buying his product, should he get any in.

"They can't buy it because they can't sell it," he said. "They can’t even sell Gulf Coast shrimp that they have from last year."

But the fishermen facing this uncertain future stand to lose much more than a job. Many come from families that have hunted, fished and lived in Louisiana's swampy waterways for generations.

"This is a way of life," Nunez said. "It's what we eat, drink and breathe."