CategorySpill Damages

The BP settlement isn’t good enough for Plaquemines Parish

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I’ve long said that no likely BP settlement would ever be enough for the damage that its 2010 oil spill caused to the Gulf region. Mostly, that’s a moral argument: The purpose of punitive damages is that a company must be shown that the cost of doing bad is more than doing good — but that’s hard to do when an oil company’s typically reckless drilling and production...

More evidence that BP got off too easily

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Last week I wrote here that BP’s $54 billion payout for damages and restoration from the 2010 Gulf oil spill just wasn’t really enough — both because of the ongoing environmental damage from the Deepwater Horizon oil that continues to wash up on our beaches and because dollars trumped real accountability. You won’t hear that critique too much from public officials, who are...

A new chapter in the insanity of Arctic drilling begins

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So far, 2015 has been a mostly gloomy year in the arena of fighting back against fossil fuel. Neither the plunging prices for oil and gas nor the growing realization — even embraced this week in the corridors of the Vatican — that greenhouse gases threaten the health and welfare of entire planet have made much of a dent in our mad rush to drill deep under the sea, in bitter...

It’s time to ban the use of Corexit, period

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The jury shouldn’t be out anymore on Corexit, the toxic dispersant that was massively dumped on the Gulf of Mexico after the BP oil spill in 2010. Many of us had concerns almost from Day One, with reports from clean-up workers of headaches and nausea. Despite our campaign to convince the government to prevent BP from dumping more toxins on top of its gigantic oil spill, the feds ultimately...

The biggest scandal of the BP oil spill was, and is, the coverup

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Tomorrow is the 5th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion that triggered an environmental calamity in the Gulf of Mexico. For many of us the region, it’s an anniversary tinged with vivid and painful memories. As I recount in my new book, Crude Justice: How I Fought Big Oil and Won, and What You Should Know About the New Environmental Assault on America, we were in the skies...

The secret oil spill that’s eating away at the Gulf

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The 2010 BP oil spill has had many unintended consequences. Here’s another one: It tends to suck a lot of the oxygen from other serious environmental issues facing the Gulf of Mexico — especially now with a flood of publicity on the 5th anniversary of the catastrophe. But even before the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded on April 20, 2010, this precious natural resource on...

The curious case of the disappearing Gulf seafood

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The 5th anniversary of the BP oil spill is causing a lot of journalists to revisit issues that have not received the attention that they deserve in the last couple of years. Take the seafood catch from the Gulf of Mexico — not only a vital source of regional pride but a key driver of jobs in Louisiana and its neighboring states. In the weeks following the Deepwater Horizon disaster...

Nearly 5 years after BP, a new lethal rig explosion in the Gulf

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It happened again. Just like so many of us predicted, and so many of us feared. Another oil rig has blown up in a massive fireball in the Gulf of Mexico, with lethal consequences for the workers at an offshore oil facility. This explosion — which comes in the midst of an ongoing debate on the after-effects of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe — took place off the coast of...

BP: “Never mind the tar mats and dead dolphins, the Gulf is healthy”

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BP just keeps stepping in it — this time I mean almost literally. The British oil giant is desperately trying to get out front of the 5th anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon tragedy with a series of exculpatory moves, includes a website that tries weakly to contradict the damning flood of scientific research about the ongoing environmental problems in the Gulf of Mexico. This week, BP took...

Five years after BP, science tells a devastating tale about sea life

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Coming up on five years after the BP oil spill, science has told us only a fraction of what we need to know about the catastrophe and its pernicious impact on the marine life of the Gulf of Mexico. For one thing, some key studies are just getting underway now, as research institutions are finally getting a tiny slice of the billions of dollars that have been promised for the Gulf by the British...

Stuart H. Smith is an attorney based in New Orleans fighting major oil companies and other polluters.
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