MS AL LA GA

TX Mobile New Orleans Houston

FL Tampa Corpus Christi

¶Miami

$0–$200,000 • $1,000,000–$1,200,000 • $2,000,000+

$200,000–$400,000 • $1,200,000–$1,400,000

$400,000–$600,000 • $1,400,000–$1,600,000

$600,000–$800,000 • $1,600,000–$1,800,000

$800,000–$1,000,000 • $1,800,000–$2,000,000

Source: 2007 U.S. Economic Census Source: 2007 U.S. Note: Tourism Economic includes: Census sporting goods stores, scenic/sightseeing transport (water), fishing clubs/guides, hunting/fishing reserves, Note: Tourism includes: sporting goods stores, scenic/sightseeing transport (water), fishing clubs/guides, hunting/fishing reserves, camps, boat rentals, hotels, casinos, and nature parks. Fishing inlcudes: finfish, shellfish, other seafood, canning, frozen seafood, camps, boat rentals, hotels, casinos, and nature parks. Fishing inlcudes: finfish, shellfish, other seafood, canning, frozen seafood, seafood markets and wholesalers. seafood markets and wholesalers.

lifespan, the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund awarded just over $7 billion to 5,560 individual claimants.98

It is currently not clear, however, the extent to which the enormous indirect economic impacts associated with loss of consumer confidence and injuries to the Gulf coast "brand" will ultimately be deemed compensable and that resulting uncertainty has generated intense debate among diverse government entities, local communities, interest groups, and BP. The federal Oil Pollution Act, for instance, does expressly recognize the appropriateness of compensation for "loss of profits or impairment of earning capacity resulting from property loss or natural resource injury."99 But there is no easy legal answer to the question of how closely linked those lost profits or earnings must be to the spill before they should be deemed compensable. The search for such a rational endpoint for liability has already stymied the Gulf Coast Claims Facility in its processing of claims.100 The absence of clear and fair procedures for systematically evaluating such claims deserves focused attention as the lessons from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are learned.

The major industries in the "hardest working basin." Florida State University oceanographer Ian McDonald has called the Gulf of Mexico "the hardest working of our ocean basins."101 The southern coast of the United States produces more than one-third

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¶of the nation's domestic seafood supply,102 including most of the shrimp, crawfish, blue crabs, and oysters.103 It produces one-third of all domestic oil,104 and claims four of the top seven trading ports by tonnage.105 The northern Gulf also provides diverse fish nursery and feeding grounds in the form of expansive marshes, mangrove stands, swamp forests, and seagrass beds, and boasts some of best beaches and waters in the United States for recreation and tourism.106 Coastal tourism and commercial fisheries generate more than $40 billion of economic activity annually in the five Gulf States.107 (Figure 6.2)

¶In 2008, according to NOAA, Gulf commercial fishermen harvested 1.27 billion pounds of finfish and shellfish that earned $659 million in total landings revenue.108 Other contributors to the total Gulf fishing economy are seafood processors, warehouses, distributors, and wholesalers. Gulf fishermen land 73 percent of the nation's shrimp—half from Louisiana waters. Louisiana accounts for 67 percent of the nation's oyster production and 26 percent of the blue crab production.109

¶As described in Chapter 5, NOAA and state fisheries agencies responded to the Deepwater Horizon spill by closing huge portions of the Gulf to commercial and recreational fishing. At the most extensive point, 88,522 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico were closed to fishing110—one-third of the U.S. portion of the Gulf of Mexico, an area larger than the six New England states. In mid-June, NOAA and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a protocol for reopening fisheries that would apply consistently to state and federal waters while striking a balance between keeping tainted seafood from market and unnecessarily crippling the seafood industry.111 What ensued was likely the most rigorous seafood-testing campaign in U.S. history.

¶By late September, when nearly 32,000 square miles of the Gulf were still closed to fishing,112 government officials made strong statements about the safety of seafood caught in reopened areas. "The shrimp, fish, and crabs are perfectly safe to eat," claimed Bob Dickey, Director of Seafood Science and Technology at the FDA.113 Bill Walker, Executive Director of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources, pronounced that "based on credible scientific data collected using federally-approved sampling and analytical techniques, Mississippi seafood has been safe and healthy to eat throughout the entirety of this event."114 NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco stated, "I have confidence in our protocols and have enjoyed Gulf seafood each trip I've made to the region."115

¶But despite these assurances, some citizens continue to doubt the safety of Gulf seafood. "Everybody's credibility has been damaged by all this," said Ian MacDonald. He continued, "[The] many changes of course that NOAA took. The great concern about [the Environmental Protection Agency] and the licensing of dispersant use. The fact of the way it was handled has undermined public confidence."116 Florida journalist Travis Pillow asked, "If people couldn't believe [the government's] estimates of how much oil was gushing into the Gulf, how could they believe their reassurance that beaches were clean or seafood was safe?"117

¶Constant media coverage about the spill also plainly shaped citizens' perception of the risks to public health. According to Timothy Fitzgerald, Senior Policy Analyst for the

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¶Vendor Sign at Taste of Chicago

Perception is reality for the Gulf seafood industry. The economic calamity that descended when commercial fisheries were closed as a health- safety precaution should have been alleviated when they reopened, but the public still wasn't buying. Fact: After a rigorous testing campaign, most commercial species appear untainted.

¶Albert Ettinger

Environmental Defense Fund's Ocean Program, "Most people have very little connection to, or understanding of, the fish they buy,"118 increasing their reliance on mass media to inform their decisions.119 Scott Dekle, general manager of the VersaCold Atlas seafood warehouse, noted that news of the spill "got plastered all over the local and national media day after day after day. No one sees Anderson Cooper now standing outside Southern Seafood saying, 'This is great.'"120 As a result, the public has come to associate Gulf seafood with oil. In August, Jonah Berger, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, said of Gulf seafood, "[R]ight now, the only association is a negative one, and so it's going to be much harder for that association to disappear."121

Most commercial Gulf seafood species seem to have emerged from the oil spill without any clear evidence of taint or contamination.122 The real impact here is the reputational damage to Gulf seafood as a safe brand. Continued government testing, improvements in public outreach, and a coordinated marketing campaign may be needed to expedite its recovery. After several requests over several months, BP relented in early November and agreed to give Louisiana $48 million and Florida $20 million for seafood testing and marketing.123 As of early December, BP is considering a similar request from Alabama.124

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¶"We were called liars when we said we didn't have oil on the beaches"

¶Patricia Denny, Destin, FL

On May 2, 1985, Patricia Denny took a job as a secretary in a brand new real estate company in Destin, Florida, a small Emerald Coast family beach town proud of its white beaches and green waters. She married, had two girls, and worked hard at Holiday Isle Properties, rising to General Manager, where she managed 177 vacation rentals. In 2009, her longtime boss retired and Denny became the owner. "I was beyond excited. My dream was coming true—all the late hours, 7-day work weeks. Something I felt so passionate about was finally happening."

¶Joe Mayer

¶In her 24 years as a property manager, Denny has weathered some tough years: "I truly never thought things could be worse than 2004-5. Not only did the real estate market come to an abrupt halt, we had hurricane after hurricane. . . . But we rebounded on our own—no hand-outs, no help from government or our insurance company."

¶In late April 2010, when Denny saw the news on TV about the Deepwater Horizon explosion, "I remember thinking, 'How awful,' but the news reported that BP was going to stop the oil from spewing and all would be well. . . . Then NOAA predicted a shift in the weather and that impact from the oil was imminent. I was devastated. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat. It was the worst time of my life. Everything was at risk—my home, my income, my children's education, my three employees who are like a family to me."

¶In early May, to show that their pristine beaches were still sugary white, "We started filming daily and sometimes twice daily a video for YouTube called Shore Shots. It involved one of my employees standing in front of the camera and showing the Gulf of Mexico and the lack of oil despite being told otherwise. . . . It was not always well received. We were called liars when we said we didn't have oil on the beaches and told we were poisoning people with Corexit for our own greedy gain. It was definitely tough.

¶"By July the oil was here. No way I could prevent it from coming on – revenue dropped significantly. By August it was awful. No one, I mean no one, believed that we weren't covered in oil similar to the Exxon Valdez."

¶Denny's older daughter was a junior and biology major at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. As the cancellations rolled in, the young woman withdrew from college in July for what would have been her senior year. She moved home to help her mother run the company." It breaks my heart to see her do this," says Denny. "I am hoping she can go back sometime in the future but at this time I don't know when that is."*

¶*In early December 2010, Denny received compensation for her losses from the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, administered by Kenneth Feinberg and funded by BP.

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¶Public Health Precautions

A sign of the times is posted at a public beach in Alabama. Long viewed strictly as environmental disasters, major oil spills can be hazardous to human health, beyond direct fatalities or injuries. Many Gulf Coast residents have complained of respiratory problems and headaches, and depressive illness has skyrocketed. Rocky Kistner/NRDC

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¶Coastal tourism. The Gulf coast generates an estimated $19.7 billion of tourism activity annually.125 Florida accounts for more than 50 percent of the total126 and, accordingly, attributes enormous actual and potential losses in tourism-related revenue to the oil spill. Quantifying such losses and the value of reputational damage may be even more difficult than assigning a value to the indirect losses suffered by the Louisiana fishing industry. Furthermore, responsibility for compensating those who may have suffered the indirect financial losses poses challenges of law, administration, and equity.

¶Floridians expressed frustrations with the news coverage of the oil spill—not all of it accurate. As described by Keith Overton, Chairman of the Florida Restaurant and Lodging Association and Chief Operating Officer of the TradeWinds Island Resorts in St. Pete Beach, in testimony before the Commission in July 2010, "These losses have occurred in our area, in the Tampa Bay area, without a single drop of oil ever reaching our beach and that is true for most of Florida. Pensacola has had some oil but the rest of the Panhandle is in pretty good shape right now. But you wouldn't know that if you looked at the national news media or you read the newspaper each day."127 With dismay, he described a newscast that showed footage of President Obama walking along an unoiled Pensacola beach in mid- June, but with superimposed oil dripping down the screen behind him.

¶Just as the potential extent of the spill's impact was coming into focus, Michael Hecht, President of Greater New Orleans, Inc., a regional economic alliance in southeast Louisiana, testified in July that "going forward . . . this perception, this brand issue, is incredibly important."128 A Louisiana-commissioned national poll conducted in early August 2010 found that 29 percent of respondents who were planning to visit the state said they were actively canceling or postponing their visits because of the oil spill.129 Overton noted that the downturn in hotel reservations through June 2010 in unoiled Pinellas County had cost roughly $70 million and could total in the billions for the Florida Panhandle.

¶Human Health Because oil spills have historically been viewed as environmental disasters, affecting nature, the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and related policies offer fewer tools for addressing the human dimensions of such accidents. But in the case of the Macondo blowout—of unprecedented size, affecting a broad area, and the entire regional economy—assessment of impacts must also include the effects on human health, mental and physical. The Deepwater Horizon crew of course bore the immediate, devastating effects of the rig's destruction:¹¹¹¹ Press Release, Transocean, Transocean Ltd. Reports Fourth Quarter and Full-Year 2009 Results, February 24, 2010. Pratt, Priest, and Castaneda, Offshore Pioneers, 36–48. E.R. Bartley, The Tidelands Oil Controversy: A Legal and Historical Analysis (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1953); Tyler Priest, "Claiming the Coastal Sea: The Battle for the Tidelands, 1937–1953," History of the Offshore Oil and Gas Industry in Southern Louisiana: Vol. 1: Papers on the Evolving Offshore Industry, MMS OCS Study 2004-049 (New Orleans: U.S. Department of the Interior, Minerals Management Service, 2008), 67–90, https://www.gomr.mms. gov/homepg/espis/espisfront.asp. Testimony of Gregory Walz, Hearing before the Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation Team, October 7, 2010, 157–59. Council on Environmental Quality, Final Recommendations of the Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force (July 19, 2010), 41. 12 43 U.S.C. § 1346.Show full note deaths,¹⁷¹⁷ "Brazil Pins Hopes on Massive, untapped Oil Fields," NPR, December 1, 2009, http://www.npr.org/templates/story/ story.php?storyId=120966523. On Project Mohole and JOIDES, see David K. van Keuren, "Breaking New Ground: The Origins of Scientific Ocean Drilling," in The Machine in Neptune's Garden: Historical Perspectives on Technology and the Marine Environment, eds. Helen M. Rozwadowski and David K. van Keuren (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2004), 183–210. On Shell's Eureka project, see Priest, The Offshore Imperative, 97, 218. E.R. Bartley, The Tidelands Oil Controversy: A Legal and Historical Analysis. Testimony of Jesse Gagliano, Hearing before the Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation Team, August 24, 2010, 320.Show full note injuries, and the unquestioned trauma of losing colleagues; the terror of the explosions and fires, the harrowing rescue, and the sense of involvement in the wider damages that ensued; and the rigors of the investigations and recovery efforts since.

¶But the tangible human health effects are more widespread. It was certainly a cruel, added misfortune that the Macondo spill bore down most heavily on southern Louisiana, less than five years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Louisiana and Mississippi coast, ruined much of New Orleans, killed hundreds, drove some of the population away permanently (including essential medical professionals), devastated the local economy, and shocked the nation with images of disorder and suffering. An unfortunate lesson of the oil spill is

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Figure 6.3: Recent Changes in Emotional Well Being Along the Gulf Coast Recent Changes in Emotional Well Being Along the Gulf Coast 30%

¶25%

Clinical Diagnoses of depression 20% Stress Sadness 15% Worry

¶10%

¶5%

¶0%

Gulf Facing Inland Counties Non-Gulf States - 5% Counties Source: Gallup-Heathways Well-Being Index Change Since April 20th 2010 This figure depicts the recent changes in emotional well-being along the Gulf coast, as indicated in the Gallup Survey conducted April 21 to August 6, 2010.

¶Gaullup-Heathways Well-Being Index Change Since April 20th 2010

that the nation was not well prepared for the possibility of widespread, adverse effects on human health and mental well-being, especially among a particularly vulnerable citizenry. Gulf communities have long-time residents with strong roots to the region. Of coastal Louisiana residents surveyed after the spill,⁶⁰⁶⁰ Testimony of Curt Kuchta, 185–186; Testimony of Jimmy Harrell, 12. Testimony of Jimmy Harrell, Hearing before the Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation Team, May 27, 2010, 118. percent of respondents reported living in their communities their entire lives and another 21 percent had lived there at least 20 years.130 This context of regional and cultural ties to their communities exacerbates the worry and stress caused by the oil spill. Nearly 60 percent of respondents reported feeling worried almost constantly during the week prior to being surveyed because of the spill.131 Louisiana shrimper Donald Johnfroe, Jr., said, "Everything I'm making now is going to pay off debt from this summer. I'm behind on my child-support payments, house payments. I need money."132 Residents are worried about the economy, their way of life, and the stability of their communities. All of these factors play a role in affecting their health.

During the Commission's first public hearing in New Orleans on July 12–13, representatives of community groups focused on the psychological impacts. "Our people are used to tragedies and pulling themselves up from their bootstraps . . . but no one is saved from depression and fear," said Sharon Gauthe, Executive Director of Bayou Interfaith Shared Community Organizing. Grace Scire, Gulf coast Regional Director for Boat People SOS, told the Commission about her experiences working with the Vietnamese, Laotian, and Cambodian communities in the Gulf: "People are so dejected—it's not even the word for that—they're still recovering from Katrina."133 Both speakers emphasized the need for additional community mental health services.

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¶Industry and government responders did not adequately anticipate or address the magnitude of potential health impacts. Meanwhile, many citizens were coping with physical ailments (e.g., respiratory problems, headaches) and stress. Though health agencies eventually issued personal protective equipment guidelines for response workers and created a registry of these newly trained personnel, they missed the crucial window for screening their baseline physical health before the workers were directly exposed to oil products.134

¶Although many of the behavioral and psychological effects of the oil spill remain unknown, a Gallup survey of nearly 2,600 residents revealed that medical diagnoses of depressive illness had increased by 25 percent since the rig explosion.135 The "well-being index" included in the Gallup study showed that coastal residents reported being stressed, worried, and sad more often than their inland counterparts (Figure 6.3).

¶There is also an indication that domestic violence increased. Between April and June 2010, the Administration for Children and Families observed a spike in calls to the National Domestic Violence Hotline from Gulf coast states, most notably in Louisiana.136 Such broad community impacts suggest the need to monitor and respond to longer-term effects as warranted, and to pay special attention to especially vulnerable populations along the Gulf coast, including children, minority fishing communities, and Indian tribes.

¶Children and families. Children are particularly vulnerable to disruption in social, familial, and community stability as a result of disaster. A study conducted after Katrina found that children exposed to the hurricane were five times more likely to suffer from serious emotional disturbances than they were before the hurricane.137 Although the direct impacts of the oil spill of course cannot be compared to the utter devastation wrought on entire communities by Katrina, some studies have already begun to document the spill's impact on children and families. A telephone survey of more than 900 coastal Louisiana adults two months after the spill began indicated that 46 percent felt they were unable to take care of their families as well as they would like.138 In another survey of more than 1,200 adults living within 10 miles of the coast, parents from Louisiana and Mississippi reported that more than one-third of their children were suffering mental or physical health effects as a result of the oil spill. The most significant health impact was reported among families earning less than $25,000 annually.139

¶Exactly what proportion of health symptoms is attributable to the oil spill? Meaningful measurement is difficult at best. The preliminary findings of one academic study reported an "exposure differential" between exposed and non-exposed subjects.140 Adults and children who were directly exposed to oil were, on average, twice as likely to report new physical or mental health issues as those who were not.141

¶Minority fishing communities. Another sensitive community is the 40,000 Southeast Asian immigrants who live along the Gulf coast (primarily Vietnamese, but also Laotians and Cambodians, many of them refugees from the decades-long wars in that region), one-fifth of who are fishermen.142 Most of these families suffered direct, grievous harm from the 2005 hurricanes143 and now face the spill-related loss of their livelihoods for an

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uncertain duration. Many of the fishermen speak little or no English, making their access to the Gulf Coast Claims Facility especially challenging144 and posing difficulties in finding work outside the fishing industry. As the Commission heard in July, the cultural stigma associated with mental health problems in some of these communities complicates efforts to help those in need.145

Tribal communities. According to Brenda Robichaux, former principal Chief of the United Houma Nation, tribal communities on the coast are paying "the ultimate price" for both the mismanagement of the Mississippi River Delta over the past half-century (see discussion in Chapter 7) as well as the development of the offshore oil industry.146 Both activities have contributed to the loss of wetlands and the destruction of barrier islands, which play crucial roles in protecting the tribes from major storms. Just as they began to recover from four hurricanes in three years, many members of Gulf coastal tribal communities for whom fishing is a lifestyle and a livelihood, suffered directly from the oil spill and face a difficult future.

Long-term health effects. The long-term health impacts of oil spills remain largely uncertain, but research conducted in the wake of other disasters provides some insight. A survey conducted one year after Exxon Valdez found that cleanup workers classified as being subjected to "high exposure" were 3.6 times as likely to have a generalized anxiety disorder and 2.9 times as likely to have post-traumatic stress disorder as members of an unexposed group.147 Alaska Natives were particularly prone to effects of chemical exposure and, for cultural reasons, less likely to seek mental health services.148 Unlike natural disasters, where mental health consequences generally dissipate relatively quickly, technological disasters are known to have chronic impacts on affected individuals and communities—a problem that is worsened as issues of fault and compensation are negotiated or litigated over an extended period.149 Important symptoms include depression, substance abuse, domestic violence, psychological disorders, and disruption of family structures.150 Evidence of these effects, as noted, has already appeared in the Gulf coast communities most directly influenced by the oil spill.151

To date, the Gulf Coast Compensation Fund has maintained that it will not pay damages for mental illness caused by the spill. According to its administrator, Kenneth Feinberg: "If you start compensating purely mental anguish without a physical injury—anxiety, stress—we'll be getting millions of claims from people watching television. You have to draw the line somewhere."152 The affected Gulf coast states' health departments (excluding Texas) received $42 million for mental health from BP, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration received $10 million.153

Because no biological specimens were taken at the outset of the response, the study of future health effects will be constrained by a lack of baseline data. No biological samples were taken from cleanup workers before or immediately after their exposure to oil. More generally, given the unreliability of surveillance in the days and weeks after the spill, the quality of any baseline data for studies on long-term health effects was compromised. For future emergency response efforts, the government should have enhanced authority to ensure adequate baseline data and surveillance measures.154 In the meantime, at a

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¶minimum, long-term monitoring of Deepwater Horizon responders' health and of community health in the most affected coastal areas is warranted and scientifically important.

¶However, the focus on long-term research cannot overshadow the need to provide immediate medical assistance to affected communities, which have suffered from limited access to healthcare services.155 In the years following Hurricane Katrina, many of the damaged healthcare facilities were not rebuilt or replaced, including the major provider of indigent care, Louisiana State University Charity Hospital.156 This left coastal communities vulnerable and lacking adequate access to care.157 The greatest damage to Louisiana's health-services infrastructure was in Region One (Orleans, Jefferson, St. Bernard, and Plaquemines Parishes).158 A year after the storm, New Orleans had been federally designated as a health professional shortage area (HPSA) for primary care, mental healthcare, and dental care. By 2008,⁸⁶⁸⁶ Testimony of James Nicholas Wilson, Hearing before the Deepwater Horizon Joint Investigation Team, October 13, 2010, 10; Testimony of Steve Bertone, 35. Safety and Environmental Management Program (SEMP) on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS), 61 Fed. Reg. 37,493 (July 18, 1996). The driller first sent mud to pits 9 and 10, then switched to pit 7, and then switched to pit 6. Sperry Sun data, April 20, 2010, 20:10–21:18. Press Release, Office of the Governor, Gov. Jindal Announces "Agenda For Revitalizing Coastal Louisi- ana," July 15, 2010, http://wwwprd.doa.louisiana.gov/LaNews/PublicPages/Dsp_PressRelease_Display. cfm?PressReleaseID=2550&Rec_ID=1.Show full note percent of Louisiana's parishes were HPSA- designated, with Medicaid and uninsured residents hardest hit.159 Resources including federal Primary Care Access Stabilization Grants were made available to the state160 and by August 2010, five years after Katrina, substantial progress had been made in restoring healthcare resources through a redesigned primary-care safety net.161

¶Assessing the environmental, economic, and human health damages from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill is, of course, only the threshold challenge. The even larger challenge now facing the Gulf is how to achieve its restoration, notwithstanding years of failed efforts to recover from past destruction.

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¶Chapter Seven "People have plan fatigue . . . they've been planned to death" Recovery and Restoration Whatever the final tally of shorelines oiled, fishing days lost, and waterfowl killed, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill touched virtually every aspect of life on the Gulf of Mexico coast— and far beyond. Tens of thousands of residents draw fish and seafood from the Gulf 's waters, which supply much of the nation. Many thousands more produce oil and gas from its buried stores. Gulf coast ports handle enormous volumes of grain and freight leaving American farms and factories and goods arriving from abroad. Vacationers come from across the country and around the globe to sun and swim on Gulf coast beaches.

¶But even before the highly visible damages caused by the spill became clear, many of those crucial Gulf resources faced long-term threats. Indeed, the Louisiana coast—that essential borderland and nursery to the nation's richest fisheries—has hit a dark trifecta. First, more than 2,300 square miles1 of coastal wetlands (an area larger than the State of Delaware) have been lost to the Gulf since the United States raised the massive levees along the lower Mississippi River after the devastating Great Flood of 1927. Exceptionally powerful hurricanes, always a threat to the region, struck the coast in

¶Satellite-eye views of the Gulf a month after the Macondo blowout reveal the extent of the spill. Oil appears lighter or darker in the photograph depending on the relative angles of sun and camera. < NASA/GSFC, MODIS Rapid Response

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¶FIGURE 7.1: Maximum Extent of Oil

MIS SIS S IP PI A L A BA M A GEOR GI A

Mobile LOUI S IAN A Lake Biloxi Pontchartrain Pensacola F L O R I DA Tallahassee Baton Rouge Panama

City 0 mi — 50

M New i ss

i s s i ppi Orleans 0 km — 50

¶Houma