New Orleans (AP)-Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded off the Gulf CoastKilling 11 and sending 134 million gallons (507.2 million liters) of crude gushing in the ocean, the effects of the worst offshore oil spills of the nation are always felt.
BP oil company paid billions of dollars In damagePropeling ambitious coastal catering projects in five states. However, cleaning workers and local residents who have undergone health impacts they attribute to the oil spill struggled to make their business heard in court and few received compensation.
Conservation groups say that the spills have catalyzed innovative catering work across the Gulf Coast, but are alarmed to stop a project to create flagship land in Louisiana. While the Trump administration extends oil and offshore gas, they fear that the best opportunities to rebuild the Gulf coast is moving away.
In this file photo of April 21, 2010 provided by the American Coast Guard, the intervention teams in force sprayed water on the offshore BP Deepwater Horizon oil platform. (American Coast Guard via AP, file)
Renting health problems with spill remains difficult to prove in court
In the coastal community of Lafitte in south-eastern Louisiana, Tammy Gremillion celebrates Easter Sunday, the anniversary of the April 20 spill without her daughter. She remembers warning Jennifer not to join a cleaning team responsible for containing BP spill.
“But I couldn’t stop it – they offered these children a lot of money,” said Gremillion. “They did not know the dangers. They did not do what they should have to protect these young people. ”
Jennifer worked in oil to the knees for months, returning home to start the smoke again, covered with black spots and burst into rashes and suffering headaches. It was also exposed to Corexit, a chemical approved by the EPA applied on and below the water to disperse the oil, which was related to health problems.
In 2020, Jennifer died of leukemia, blood cancer that can be caused by exposure to oil.
Gremillion, which melted into tears by telling the death of his daughter, is “1,000% confident” that exposure to toxins during cleaning caused cancer.
She filed a complaint against BP in 2022, although allegations were difficult to establish in court. The Gremillion costume is part of a small number of cases still pending.
A investigation By the Associated Press, previously found that both prosecution, but a handful of approximately 4,800 prosecution for health problems linked to the dark tide were rejected and were rejected and Only one was settled.
In a 2012 regulation, BP paid sick workers and coastal residents of $ 67 million, but that did not exceed $ 1,300 each for almost 80% of those who request compensation.
Downs Law Group lawyers, Gremillion representative and around 100 other people in business against BP, said the company has exploited procedural techniques to prevent victims from obtaining their day before the courts.
BP refused to comment on the litigation in progress. In legal files, BP refused allegations that oil exposure caused health problems and attacked the credibility of medical experts brought by the complainants.
A brown pelican covered with oil tries to lift its wings on the beach of the East Grand Terre island along the coast of Louisiana on June 3, 2010. (Photo AP / Charlie Riedel, file)
Controversy on coastal catering
The environmental impact was devastating, recalled PJ Hahn, who served on the front line as head of coastal management in southeast Louisiana. He watched the oil gnaw at the Barrier Islands and hammer them around his community in the parish of Platemines until “he would collapse like a cookie in a hot cafe, will separate.”
The muffled oyster beds, the reefs were covered in chemicals and the fishing industry. Pelicans of diving for dead fish have emerged from contaminated waters smeared in a black spark. Tens of thousands of sea birds and sea turtles have been killed, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
A worker uses a suction pipe to eliminate the wired oil on the ground from the dumping of Deepwater Horizon, in Belle Terre, la., June 9, 2010. (AP photo / Eric Gay, file)
Since then, “significant progress” has been made in restoration of golf habitats and ecosystems, according to the advice of the trustee of damage caused by natural resources, a state group and federal agencies responsible for managing the catering funded by penalties levied against BP.
The Council says that more than 300 catering projects worth $ 5.38 billion was approved in the Gulf of Mexico, which president Donald Trump renamed Gulf of America. The projects include the acquisition of wetlands in Mississippi to protect the nesting areas of birds, the reconstruction of reefs along the Baie de Pensacola in Florida and the restoration of 4 square miles (11 square kilometers) of Marsh in Lake Borgne near New Orleans.
The crude oil of the dark tide of Deepwater Horizon washes on the ground at Orange Beach, in Alberta, June 12, 2010. (AP photo / Dave Martin, file)
While a tragedy, the spill “has galvanized a movement – which continues to put pressure for a healthier and more resilient coast,” said Simone Maloz, campaign director to restore the Mississippi delta, a conservation coalition.
The influx of billions of dollars in penalties paid by BP “allowed us to think bigger, to act more quickly and to rely on science to guide large-scale solutions,” she added.
However, what many environmentalists consider as the flagship product of catering projects funded by payment in the event of a Deepwater Horizon disaster – an effort of around 3 billion dollars to divert the sediments of the Mississippi to rebuild 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) of land in the south -east of Louisiana – subsistence of communities and dolphines.
The Governor of Louisiana, Jeff Landry, said the project “Break our culture” By harming the local oyster and shrimp peaches due to the influx of fresh water. Earlier this month, its administration interrupted the project for 90 days, citing its high costs, and its future remains uncertain.
More offshore drilling planned for the Gulf
The Trump administration is Seeking to sell more Baux of oil and offshore gas, which the commercial group of the American Petroleum Institute industry called “a big step forward for the domination of American energy”.
BP announced an oil discovery in the Gulf last week and is planning more than 40 new wells over the next three years. The company told AP that it had improved safety and surveillance standards.
“We are very aware that we must always put security first,” said BP in a statement sent by e-mail. “We have made many changes so that such an event never happens again.”
However, Joseph Gordon, director of climate and energy for the non -profit organization Oceana, warned the legacy of Deepwater Horizon should be “an alarm bell” against the expansion of offshore drilling.
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Brook is a member of the body for the Associated Press / Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a non-profit national services program that places journalists from local editorial rooms to account for undercurrent issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @ jack_brook96.
