New Orleans (AP) – Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig 15 Years Exploded the Gulf Coastkilling 11 vehicles and sending 134 million gallons (507.2 million liters) of crude oil into the ocean, the impact of the country’s worst offshore oil spill is still being felt.
Oil Company BP Remunerated Billions of dollars exist damagepromote ambitious coastal restoration projects in five states. However, cleanup workers and local residents suffering from health impacts have difficulty hearing the case in court, and few have received a large number of cases compensation.
The conservation team said the leak has facilitated innovation recovery efforts across the Gulf Coast, but was shocked by the pause of a land-creating project at the Louisiana flagship store. As the Trump administration expands offshore oil and gas, their fears are the best opportunity to rebuild the Gulf Coast is slipping away.
In the coastal community of Lafitte in southeast Louisiana, Tammy Gremillion is celebrating Easter Sunday, the anniversary of the April 20 spill without a daughter. She remembers warning Jennifer not to join a cleaning staff member responsible for containing a BP leak.
“But I can’t stop her – they provide a lot of money for these kids,” Gerry Yili said. “They don’t know the danger. They don’t do what should be protecting these young people.”
Jennifer worked deep in the knees on the oil for several months, returning to the smoke, covering the black spots and bursting out with rashes and painful headaches. She is also exposed to Corexit, an EPA-approved chemical applied on and under water to disperse oil Related to health issues.
In 2020, Jennifer died of leukemia, a form of blood cancer Exposed to oil.
Gremillion shed tears while narrating her daughter’s death, “1,000% confident” that exposure to toxins during the cleaning process can lead to cancer.
She filed a lawsuit against BP in 2022, although the allegations are difficult to establish in court. Grim’s $100 million lawsuit is one of the few cases still under trial.
one investigation The Associated Press previously found that, except for about 4,800 lawsuits seeking compensation for health issues related to oil spills, all lawsuits have been dismissed and have been dismissed, and Only one.
In the 2012 settlement, BP paid $67 million for workers and coastal residents of disease, but nearly 80% of those seeking compensation paid no more than $1,300.
Downs Law Group’s lawyers represent Gerry and about 100 lawyers targeting BP, said the company uses procedural technology to prevent victims from appearing in court.
BP declined to comment on the pending lawsuit. In court documents, BP denied allegations that oil exposure could cause health problems and attacked the credibility of medical experts brought to the plaintiff.
PJ Hahn recalls that environmental impacts were devastating. He watched the oil swallow up in the swamps of Barrier Island and his community until “it collapsed like a cookie in hot coffee, just collapsed.”
The oyster beds suffocate, the coral reefs are covered with chemicals, but the fishing industry is canned. Pelicans dive dead fish emerge from contaminated water that is smeared with black gloss. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, thousands of seabirds and turtles were killed.
Since then, “significant progress” has been made to restore bay habitat and ecosystems, according to the Trustee Committee on Natural Resources Damage Assessment.
The Council said the Gulf of Mexico has approved more than 300 $5.38 billion restoration projects, the President Donald Trump Rename Bay of America. These projects include the acquisition of wetlands in Mississippi to protect bird nesting areas, rebuilding reefs along Pensacola Bay, Florida, and restoring about 4 square miles (11 square kilometers) of swamps at Lake Pogness near New Orleans.
At the same time as a tragedy, the leak “incited a campaign – continuing to push for healthier, more resilient coastal areas,” said Simone Maloz, campaign director for the Conservation Alliance to restore the Mississippi River Delta.
she added.
However, many conservationists believe it is the flagship store of the restoration project funded by the Deepwater Horizon disaster spending – an approximately $3 billion effort to transfer sediment from the Mississippi River to the reconstruction of 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) of land in southeast Louisiana, which has stopped the focus on its impact on local communities and Dollphins Communications and dollphins Communications and dollphins ppins.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry said the project will “Break Our Culture” Damage local oyster and shrimp fisheries by damaging the inflow of fresh water. His administration paused for 90 days at high cost earlier this month, and its future remains uncertain.
The Trump administration is Seeking to sell more Offshore oil and gas leasing, the industry trade group, the U.S. Petroleum Institute calls it a “big step in U.S. energy dominance.”
BP announced an oil discovery in the Gulf last week and plans to have more than 40 wells over the next three years. The company told AP it improves security standards and oversight.
“We are still keenly aware that we must always put security first,” BP said in an emailed statement. “We have made so many changes that such events should not happen again.”
Still, Joseph Gordon, director of climate and energy for nonprofit Oceania, warned that the legacy of Deepwater Horizon should be a “wake-up” rather than an expansion of offshore drilling.
Brook is a member of the Associated Press/Reports Corps of the State University News Initiative. The U.S. Report is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report secret issues. Follow Brooke X on social platforms: @jack_brook96.
