We don’t live in the areas directly hurt by the Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster so we try to be respectful of those who do as we cover this tragedy. (Check out this blistering editorial from Alabama’s Press-Register going after the New York Times and Washington Post, who were not so respectful.) And boy, their criticism of Ken Feinberg’s handling of his Gulf Coast Claims Facility has been brutal and for pretty good reason.
You may recall that Feinberg’s firm is being paid $850,000 a month by BP to essentially represent the company as its attorney while directly engaging victims outside of the presence of their own counsel in an judicially unsupervised claims process. (Are we in America? Rhetorical question.) After a second blistering letter from the Associate U.S. Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, slight improvements may result but the fundamental problems are still there.
Mr. Feinberg warned families and businesses last week that the longer they wait to accept a lump sum final payment (releasing all companies who caused this disaster from any and all legal responsibility), the less money they may get. Yet clearly, people need to wait. The long-term effects of the disaster on businesses and communities will not be known for several years.
And if you doubt this, check out the shocking findings issued yesterday by Roffer's Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service, Inc. (Full report here.) If this doesn’t give folks pause about signing away their rights and accepting a final “settlement” from BP now, I don’t know what will:
[I]t is clear that a substantial amount of oil remains in the central Gulf of Mexico both in the ocean, on the sea floor, and along the coastal zone beaches and marshes. It is anticipated that this oil - dispersant mixture will continue to exist in many different chemical forms for many years and decades. The effects of this disaster remain to be determined and many of the effects may not be apparent for years to come. …
The impacts are likely to be seen at the habitat, organism, population and ecosystem levels. The impacts probably will range from slight degradation to total loss of essential habitats. Changes in habitat connectivity as a result of oil spill responses by humans (e.g. new beach barriers, new islands, increased freshwater outflow from pumping, digging, etc.) are already obvious. At the organism level, effects are likely to be manifested in direct injury and death (already seen), external and internal deformities, cancer and other diseases, genetic defects, reduction of feeding efficiency, changes in benthic survival, as well as, changes in social and sexual behavior. …
There is great concern whether the biological impacts at the individual and population level will have cascading impacts on food webs and ecosystems such as loss of prey species (menhaden, other herrings/sardines, jacks, shrimp, etc.) bases along with loss of large pelagic (mammals, tunas, billfishes, sharks, etc.) and benthic (e.g. snappers and groupers) species. Remember that snappers, groupers and other organisms burrow into the bottom where oil has been found and probably still occurs. …
While there have been some reports in the media to the contrary, it is highly unlikely that depressed populations have increased their abundance significantly due to the relatively short-term stoppage of fishing. One needs to understand that some of the effects on the ecosystem are likely to be subtle at first, but significant over time. Apparent changes natural mortality and fishing mortality will have to be studied through fishery independent population assessments that produce size structured population estimates in space and time. …
Some people have stated that the oil has degraded to the point that it is more like asphalt, i.e. rock-like in composition and no longer is a problem. We have asked these people if they would take freshly laid asphalt and put it in their vegetable gardens to grow food that they would want to eat.
The bottom line for claimants? Please, contact a lawyer – now!
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