New Orleans (AP) – Fifteen years after the oil horizon -oil -exploded from the golf coast, 11 and 134 million gallons (507.2 million liters) rave crude oil into the ocean.
The oil company BP paid damages in billions and promoted ambitious projects to restore coasts in five states. Cleaning up and residents who had harmful effects have to deal with oil pollution to hear their cases in court, and only a few have received considerable compensation.
Conservation groups say that the innovative recovery work in the golf coast catalyzed, but are alerted about the recent hold of a flagship-land acquisition project in Louisiana. While the Trump government is expanding offshore oil and gas, they are concerned that the best ways to recreate the golf coast slip away.
The binding of health problems to the spoiling remains difficult to prove in court
In the coastal community of Lafitte in Southeast -Louisiana, Tammy Gremillion celebrates the Easter Sunday without her daughter, the anniversary of the spill on April 20. She remembers that she has warned Jennifer to join a clean -up team that is commissioned to spill the spill for BP.
“But I couldn't stop them – they offered a lot of money to these children,” said Gremillion. “They didn't know the dangers. They didn't do what they should do to protect these young people.”
Jennifer worked in the oil for months, returned home, which covered with black spots and broke down headaches in rashes and suffer. It was also exposed to Corexit, a chemical approved by the EPA that was used on and under the water to dispel oil that was associated with health problems.
In 2020, Jennifer died of leukemia, a blood cancer that can be exposed to oil.
Gremillion that broke out into tears when she told her daughter's death is “1,000% confident” that exposure to toxins caused cancer during the imprint.
In 2022 she filed a lawsuit against BP, although the allegations were difficult to found in court. Gremillions suit is one of the few outstanding cases.
An investigation by the Associated Press showed that all, apart from a handful of around 4,800 complaints that applied for a compensation for health problems in connection with the oil spest, were released and only one was enclosed.
In an agreement from 2012, BP paid sick workers and coastal dwellers 67 million dollars. However, this was not more than 1,300 US dollars for almost 80% of those who were making compensation.
Laws from the Downs Law Group, which represent gremillions and around 100 in cases against BP, say that the company has used process techniques to prevent the victims from receiving their day in court.
BP refused to comment on pending legal disputes. In court files, BP denied the allegations that the exposure of oil caused health problems and attacked the credibility of medical experts submitted by the plaintiffs.
Controversy around the restoration of the coast
The environmental influences were devastating, remembered PJ Hahn, who served as a civil servant of coastal management in southeast Louisiana on the front. He watched the oil on barrier islands and swamps in his community in the municipality of Plaquendines until “simply crumbling it like a biscuit in hot coffee.”
Oysters beds suffocated, reefs were covered in chemicals and the fishing industry danced. Pelicans appearing for dead fish appear from the contaminated waters, which were smeared with a black shine. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, tens of thousands of seabirds and sea turtles were killed.
Since then, according to the trust course of the natural resource damage, a group of state and state authorities that are financed with the administration of the crimes raised against BP to achieve the restoration of golf lifting rooms and ecosystems.
The Council says that more than 300 restoration projects worth 5.38 billion US dollars were 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 for birds, the reconstruction of reefs along Pensacola Bay in Florida and the restoration of 11 square kilometers in Lake Borgne near New Orleans.
While a tragedy, the spill “a movement – a movement – one that continues to urge a healthier, more resistant coast,” said Simone Maloz, head of campaign for the restoration of the Mississippi delta, a nature conservation coalition.
The influx of billions of dollars paid by BP in terms of punishments “enabled us to think larger, act faster and rely on science to guide great solutions,” she added.
But what many conservationists see as a flagship of the restoration projects financed by the disaster release from Deepwater Horizon -an effort of approximately 3 billion US dollars, sediment from the Mississippi in order to rebuild 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) in Southeast -Louisiana the livelihood on the republic and Dolk padded.
Jeff Landry, Governor of Louisiana, said the project would “break” our culture by damaging the local oyster and shrimp fishing due to the influx of fresh water. At the beginning of this month, his administration paused the project for 90 days and quoted their high costs, and their future remains uncertain.
Other offshore drilling that are planned for the Golf
The Trump administration tries to sell more offshore oil and gas rental contracts, which the industry of the American Petroleum Commercial Group described as “great progress for American energy hominance”.
BP announced an oil finding in the Golf last week and is planning more than 40 new wells over the next three years. The company informed the AP that it had improved the security standards and the supervision.
“We are still aware that we always have to put security first,” said BP in an explanation given by e -mail. “We have made a lot of changes so that such an event should never happen again.”
Nevertheless, Joseph Gordon, climate and energy director of the non -profit Oceana, warned the legacy of Deepwater Horizon against the expansion of offshore bores “an alarm bell”.