Now
is not the time to let BP off the hook for the Gulf oil spill disaster.
Environmentalists report “shrimp born without eyes, fish with lesions,
and crabs with holes in their shells.” The Obama administration has not
acted in the public’s interest. “The US government seemed to protect BP more than coastal communities or the environment.”
“The Gulf has been dying the death of a thousand cuts for a long time.”
On April 20, 2010, a reckless attitude towards the safety of the Gulf Coast by BP, as well as Transocean and Halliburton [5], caused a well to blow out 5,000 feet below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico. As the world watched in horror, underwater cameras showed a seemingly endless flow of oil – hundreds of millions of gallons – and a series of failed efforts to stop it, over a period of nearly three months. Two years later, that horror has not ended [6] for many on the Gulf.
“People should be aware that the oil is still there,” says Wilma Subra, a chemist who travels widely across the Gulf meeting with fishers and testing seafood and sediment samples for contamination.
Subra says that the reality she is seeing on the ground contrasts sharply with the image painted by BP. “I’m extremely concerned on the impact it’s having on all these sick individuals [7],” she says. Subra
believes we may be just at the beginning of this disaster. In every
community she visits, fishers show her shrimp born without eyes, fish
with lesions, and crabs with holes in their shells. She says tarballs are still washing up on beaches across the region.
While
it's too early to assess the long-term environmental impact, a host of
recent studies published by the National Academy of Sciences and other
respected institutions have shown troubling results. They describe mass
deaths of deepwater coral [8], dolphins, and killifish [9],
a small animal at the base of the Gulf food chain. "If you add them all
up, it’s clear the oil is still in the ecosystem, it’s still having an
effect,” says Aaron Viles, deputy director of Gulf Restoration Network [10], an environmental organization active in the region.
The
major class action lawsuit on behalf of communities affected by the
spill has reached a proposed $7.8 billion settlement, subject to
approval by a judge. While this seems to have brought a certain amount
of closure to the saga, environmentalists worry that any settlement is
premature, saying they fear that the worst is yet to come. Pointing to
the 1989 Exxon spill off the coast of Alaska, previously the largest oil
spill in US waters, Viles said that it was several years before the
full affect of that disaster was felt. “Four seasons after Exxon Valdez
is when the herring fisheries collapsed,” says Viles. “The Gulf has been
a neglected ecosystem for decades – we need to be monitoring it
closely.”
“Environmentalists worry that any settlement is premature, saying they fear that the worst is yet to come.”
In
the aftermath of the spill, BP flooded the Gulf with nearly 2 million
gallons of chemical dispersants. While BP says these chemicals broke up
the oil, some scientists have said this just made it less visible, and
sent the poisons deeper into the food chain.
It is widely agreed that environmental problems on the coast [11]
date back to long before the well blew open. The massive catastrophe
brought into focus problems that have existed for a generation. Land
loss caused by oil company drilling has already displaced many who lived
by the coast, and the pollution from treatment plants has poisoned
communities across the state - especially in "cancer alley," the
corridor of industrial facilities along the Mississippi River south of
Baton Rouge. “The Gulf is a robust ecosystem and it's been dying the death of a thousand cuts for a long time,” says
Viles. “BP is legally obligated to fix what they screwed up. But if
you’re only obligated to put the ecosystem back to where it was April
19, 2010, why would we?”
Fishing
is a huge part of the economy for the Gulf Coast. Around 40% of the
seafood caught in the continental US comes from here. Many area
fishermen were still recovering from Hurricane Katrina when the spill
closed a third of Gulf waters to fishing for months. George Barisich [12],
president of the United Commercial Fisherman’s Association, a group
that supports Gulf Coast fishers, says many fishers still had not
recovered from Hurricane Katrina when the oil started flowing from the BP spill [13].
Now, he says, many are facing losing their homes. “Production is down
at least 70 percent,” compared to the year before the spill, he says.
“And prices are still depressed thirty, forty, sixty percent.”
“Many fishers still had not recovered from Hurricane Katrina when the oil started flowing from the BP spill.”
In
a video statement on BP’s website, Geir Robinson, Vice President of
Economic Restoration for BP’s Gulf Coast Restoration Organization, says
that the company believes the legal settlement will resolve most
legitimate economic claims. “We do have critics,” adds Robinson. “And
we’re working hard every day to show them that we will meet our
responsibilities.”
Environmentalists
and scientists also complain that Obama administration has let down the
Gulf Coast. Viles is critical of the role the US government has played,
saying that by inaction they seemed to protect BP more than coastal
communities or the environment. “The coast guard seems to empower the
worst instincts of BP,” Viles says. “I don’t know if it’s Stockholm
Syndrome or what.”
International
environmental groups have also joined in the criticism. Oceana, a
conservation group with offices in Europe and the Americas, released a
report on Tuesday criticizing the US government’s reforms as being
either ineffective or nonexistent, saying “offshore drilling remains as
risky and dangerous as it was two years ago, and that the risk of a
major spill has not been effectively reduced.”
Theresa Dardar lives in Bayou Pointe-au-Chien [14], a Native American [15]
fishing community on Louisiana's Gulf Coast. Dardar and her neighbors
have seen their land vanish from under their feet within their lifetimes
due to canals built by the oil companies to access wells. The canals
brought salt water into freshwater marshes, helping cause the coastal
erosion that sees Louisiana lose a football field of land every 45
minutes. The main street that runs through the community now disappears
into the swamps, with telephone poles sticking out of the water.
Now,
in addition to worries about disappearing land and increasing risk of
hurricanes, she fears that her family’s livelihood is gone for good. “It’s
not going to be over for years,” she says, expressing a widely held
concern among fishers here. “We’re just a small Native American fishing
community. That’s all they’ve done their whole lives. Some of them are
over 60. What are they going to do? If BP gives them money for the rest of their lives, that’s one thing. But if not, then what can they do?
Jordan Flaherty is a journalist based in New Orleans and author of the book Floodlines: Community and Resistance from Katrina to the Jena Six [16].[17]
NOTES:
[1] http://blackagendareport.com/category/department-war/war-against-environment
[2] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/bp-gulf-disaster
[3] http://blackagendareport.com/category/us-politics/bp-gulf-settlement
[4] http://blackagendareport.com/sites/www.blackagendareport.com/files/bayou_poison.jpg
[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/12/bp-2-other-companies-cite_n_1007949.html
[6] http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2010/06/lji-injustice-index-bp-drilling.html
[7] http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2011/07/devastating-report-exposes-feinbergs.html
[8] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/26/gulf-oil-spill-coral-death_n_1380712.html
[9] http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/oil-spill-affected-gulf-fishs-biology-study-finds/
[10] http://healthygulf.org/
[11] http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/05/2011519131959617935.html
[12] http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2011/04/fishers-gather-to-commemorate.html
[13] http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2010/08/colorlines-heres-where-bp-is-dumping.html
[14] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jordan-flaherty/fears-of-cultural-extinct_b_612626.html
[15] http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2011/11/houma-nation-fight-for-recognition-by.html
[16] http://floodlines.org/
[17] http://www.addtoany.com/share_save?linkurl=http%3A%2F%2Fblackagendareport.com%2Fcontent%2Ftwo-years-after-bp-drilling-disaster-gulf-residents-fear-future&linkname=Two%20years%20After%20the%20BP%20Drilling% 0Disaster%2C%20Gulf%20Residents%20Fear%20for%20the%20Future
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