Dirty money: Why BP won’t pay up
Massive oil spill has an impact on thousands of lives, 14 years later
When a deadly explosion destroyed BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, 134 million gallons (507 million litres) of crude erupted into the sea over the next three months — and tens of thousands of ordinary people were hired to help clean up environmental devastation from the biggest offshore oil spill in US history.
These workers were exposed to crude oil and the chemical dispersant Corexit while picking up tar balls along the shoreline, laying booms from fishing boats to soak up slicks and rescuing oil-covered birds.
Recognising that some members of clean-up crews had likely become sick, BP agreed to a medical claims settlement two years after the 2010 disaster. Experts hailed it as “an extraordinary achievement” that would compensate workers fairly with little hassle.
But it hasn’t turned out that way. The effort has fallen far short of expectations, leaving many workers who claimed lasting health effects stranded with little or no payment.
Through the settlement, BP has paid ill workers and coastal residents a tiny fraction — US$67 million ($1.13b) — of the billions the company has spent on restitution for economic and environmental damage. The vast majority — 79 per cent — received no more than US$1300 ($2200) each.
Many workers claiming illnesses from the spill were forced to sue — and they’ve fared worse. All but a handful of roughly 4800 lawsuits seeking compensation for health problems have been dismissed.
Attorneys familiar with the cases say they are unaware of any that have gone to trial and know of only one that’s been settled. Former boat captain John Maas received US$110,000 from BP for his lung ailments in 2022, according to a confidential copy of the settlement.
The repeated failures demonstrate how extremely difficult it is to prove to a court that a specific illness is caused by chemical exposure — even when those chemicals are recognised causes of illness more generally.
Robin Greenwald, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys who negotiated the settlement, said even her firm has not been able to win a single medical case against BP.
“I wanted people to get their day in court and they win or lose at trial,” said Greenwald, a former federal environmental prosecutor. “Let a jury decide. . . . But they weren’t even given the chance to do that.”
Getting sick
After the explosion on April 20, 2010, the spill was spectacular. A camera live-streamed the rupture on cable news, showing the world in real time gushing oil that wouldn’t stop. Oil floated on the Gulf and washed ashore, covering plants, birds and other animals.
To break up oil, roughly millions of litresof Corexit were dropped from planes and sprayed from boats. The manufacturer said it was safer than dish soap.
But lab research on human tissue and animals has revealed Corexit can damage cells that protect the airways and cause scarring that narrows breathing tubes, according to Dr Veena Antony, a University of Alabama professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine who has studied Corexit’s effect on lung tissue. Over time, she said, the process can make it harder and harder to breathe.
“I genuinely believe that there was harm done and we didn’t realise the harm was being done — and now people are suffering,” said Antony, who testified as an expert witness in one suit against BP. “I would not, at the present time, put my hand even in Corexit without wearing double gloves.”
The current producer of Corexit, ChampionX, said the dispersant was pre-approved by the US Government for use on oil spills and the manufacturer had no role in deciding when or how to spray it.
What researchers have found so far is echoed by other studies, including one involving about 3500 Coast Guard responders. The responders who reported breathing oil fumes were 40 per cent to 50 per cent more likely to have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease-like symptoms and sinus problems compared to those who said they didn’t breathe fumes. And responders who reported exposure to both oil and Corexit were more than twice as likely to suffer shortness of breath.
A promising settlement
Proving to a court that a specific person’s illness was likely caused by their exposure to oil or Corexit can be difficult.
Yet the settlement for medical claims was supposed to make it easier for workers: BP would agree exposure to the spill could cause a host of known health issues — and workers suffering from them could file claims for payment. Initially, attorneys advocating for the settlement said it could help as many as 200,000 possibly injured workers and residents.
The settlement also included US$105 million from BP for regional health outreach and free health check-ups for exposed workers every three years for 21 years.
But things quickly went awry. The third-party administrator hired to handle claims, Garretson Resolution Group, initially rejected 78 per cent of roughly 37,000 claims. After many were resubmitted, about 36 per cent still were rejected and claimants received nothing.
Greenwald was especially frustrated her clients’ claims were repeatedly deemed deficient. “We had many a meeting with Garretson’s team to try to shake them loose of some of their narrow reading and obsession with deficiencies,” she said.
Matthew Garretson, founder of
Garretson Resolution Group, defended his claims handling in an email, saying, “it was the process the parties agreed upon and we had to administer the settlement exactly in the way the parties’ Settlement Agreement mandated”.
The company was paid roughly US$115 million to US$120 million for administering claims and for the outreach programme and medical checkup effort as of 2018, he said.
Those with longer-term illnesses who had proof from medical tests could collect up to US$60,700, or more if they had been hospitalised.
But few people had that proof. Forty of about 23,000 with approved claims collected the maximum award — less than 0.2 per cent .
Many people lacked health insurance or easy access to a doctor and the required medical tests — a problem US District Court Judge Carl Barbier, who approved the settlement, acknowledged in a hearing.
Even when people did seek medical attention, doctors untrained in treating chemical exposures often did not link illnesses to a patient’s cleanup work in medical records, according to Greenwald.
BP attorneys said any other interpretation would invite fraud, allowing opportunistic law firms to pay for a medical diagnosis after the deadline to get a settlement claims payout.
Despite his doubts, Judge Carl J. Barbier said he had to follow the settlement language.
His ruling forced thousands of workers out of the relatively easy administrative claims process into federal courts throughout the South.
The ruling was devastating for workers whose only option was to file federal lawsuits.
Most judges have sided with BP, rejecting workers’ experts as unreliable and effectively ending the cases.
It also can be difficult to find an expert witness who knows the science but doesn’t have a conflict of interest through work with the oil industry.
Looking forward
The Downs Law Group, which has lost hundreds of cases against BP, is appealing in the 5th and the 11th US Circuit Courts of Appeals, hoping they’ll rule federal district judges have misconstrued the level of proof needed for toxic exposure cases.
“It has a broader reach than the BP oil spill,” said Jason Clark, a Downs attorney. “If the burden is one that’s too high for any plaintiff to meet, then a lot of people who are exposed . . . are never going to see justice.”
Meanwhile, Downs is talking to thousands of people interested in suing over illnesses such as cancer that emerged years after the spill.
Sandler, the NIH epidemiologist, said the high burden of proof demanded by most judges means “people can’t win”.
“I think at the end of the day, did the oil from the oil spill make people sick? Yes,” Sandler said. “