What will BP owe America for the worst environmental disaster ever?

[Scuba]

Source: New Orleans Times Picayune

Water sustains the region's economy like blood in the body. Commercial and sport fishing businesses support dock services, tackle shops and gas stations. Restaurants are Louisiana's largest private-sector employer, with 140,000 workers and a direct annual economic impact of $5 billion. Wendy Waren, vice president of the Louisiana Restaurant Association, says nearly two-thirds of them serve some type of seafood.

Then there are some of the busiest shipping ports in the world, moving oil from offshore rigs up the Mississippi River and Midwestern grain out to sea to feed the rest of the world.

All are vital to world commerce and have a potential impact on consumer pocketbooks.

The Port of Gulfport in Mississippi is the nation's second-largest importer of green fruit, with Central American bananas from Chiquita and Dole accounting for 74 percent of its imported cargo in 2007.

The Port of New Orleans handled 73 millions tons of cargo in 2008, including coffee from South America and steel from Japan, Russia, Brazil and Mexico.


Read more: http://www.nola.com/

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This is the worst environmental catastrophe in history.

Environmental cleanup costs aside, the harm to coastal business will be catastropic - and expensive. Wonder how much sympathy BP execs will get in US courts, assuming we can ever get them there.

Will the damage exceed the value of BP, Halliburton and the rest of the oil industry combined? If so, should the government take over the oil business?

Could Washington really do any worse than BP, Halliburton and the rest have done?

The economics of this are mind-boggling.

[Radical Activist]

1. There are worse disasters, including mountaintop removal coal mining that Obama just stopped.

Agricultural runoff creates a dead zone in the gulf coast every year. This isn't much worse than that but you rarely hear about it thanks to the power of big ag.

BP needs to pay but let's not allow the media's selective coverage of environmental disasters tell us which is the worst.

[Quantess]

3. That sounds like an unproven opinion, at this point.

I see your point, but how can you possibly dismiss an environmental catastrophe of this magnitude?

[Radical Activist]

8. How can you dismiss other environmental disasters by declaring this the worst?

I don't believe I was dismissing this problem. I simply don't want to participate in the media's ongoing drive to ignore the other serious disasters that have happened recently. Such as Hurricane Katrina, which should also be viewed as an environmental disaster resulting from our energy policy.

[The Croquist]

20. Katrina was not caused by our energy policy but our stupidity

As soon as we started building levees New Orleans was doomed. The levees prevent flooding that keeps the delta above sea level. The delta has been sinking for tens of thousands of years and will continue to for a long, long time. The silt kept the sinking at bay. No silt and the city sinks.

[Radical Activist]

22. Our energy policy is stupidity.

I haven't heard anyone suggest that even the proposed improved levees would have stopped Katrina from being a major disaster beyond lessening some of the impacts in minor ways. Some storms are too big to guard against. The Mississippi levees aren't going to be much good anymore either, even if they're improved. Improving levees isn't a solution when 500-year disasters start happening every 5 years.

[MadMaddie]

31. Not just the levees but allowing building on the buffers that

protected New Orleans from these storms. It's more complicated than the levees themselves. We had a government at the time that wouldn't allow new construction just repairs. The same government cut funding for the Corps of Engineers. (The Corp has it's own issues)

This is happening all over the country, building in flood plains and and on coastal shores. Providing Federal insurance to folks in these areas is feeding into the disaster.

We have levees that are built out of sod and rocks which are doomed to fail.

This is much bigger than most Americans know and are willing to accept that America's infrastructure is crumbling before our eyes. We not only need to rethink how we rebuild but maybe we need to think about not rebuilding in certain areas.

[The Croquist]

37. Good point

I forgot about the buffers. More stupidity.

[Quantess]

34. That sounds reasonable. (no text)

[Posteritatis]

11. "not the worst thing ever" != "dismissing" its importance

We can talk about these sorts of things without the hyperbole.

[Quantess]

14. Well, to me it does seem like "the worst thing ever".

It seems like it's too early to tell where magnitude of this disaster fits on the scale. We already know it's far worse than the Exxon Valdez.

[Posteritatis]

19. The Exxon Valdez was also nowhere near "the worst thing ever." (nt)

[The Croquist]

21. Did you ever hear of a place called Chernobyl?

Radiation spread internationally
4,000 cancer deaths
336,000 people resettled
2,800 sq kilometers abandoned
Unknown future risk

Just wondering.

[Quantess]

29. There's no need to be snarky or condescending.

Chernobyl was a grand scale catastrophe in different ways than this latest oil spill. There will be a huge impact on aquatic life and coastal ecosystems for mile and miles.
Chernobyl was probably a worse disaster for humans, but human life isn't the only life on earth.

[The Croquist]

36. Sorry but I was just putting it into perspective

You are the one who called it the "the worst thing ever" not me.

[Radical Activist]

28. How does the death count compare to coal power plants and mining?

Has it passed over 20,000 deaths a year yet?
http://www.catf.us/publications/view/24

[Quantess]

30. Are human casualties all that matter to you?

[Radical Activist]

44. Do you know anything about the impacts of coal power?

How about the damage ozone does to plant life? Mercury in fish and birds. By any measure, there's no comparison. The annual impacts of coal power are much worse than what's happening in the gulf.

[The Croquist]

39. Coal power plants and mines also save lives

Without coal, many people worldwide wouldn't have electricity and the lower standard of living would prove fatal. That's not an endorsement of coal but an economic reality.

There is no redeeming value in this oil spill.

[Radical Activist]

43. Well, that's the coal industry line.

But there are plenty of other ways to produce energy. Some are less deadly and wouldn't leave countries dependent on coal imports.

[Radical Activist]

24. Yes. Hyperbole is calling it the worst diaster ever

completely out of context of other things that have happened recently.

[Vinnie From Indy]

12. You are simply incorrect

I predict this disaster will have economic and environmental impacts that DWARF by orders of magnitude mountaintop removal AND ag runoff COMBINED.

you write,
"let's not allow the media's selective coverage of environmental disasters tell us which is the worst."

So, I guess we should just listen to your silly, unsupported nonsense and not get too worked up about this.

[Radical Activist]

25. You predict.

Which means we don't know yet, which means there is yet no basis to declare it the "worst."

At least the oceans will recover eventually, even if it takes a few decades. The destroyed mountains of Appalachia are NEVER coming back. No amount of reclamation will bring back the biodiversity, the cultural heritage and the natural beauty of those mountains. The damage is permanent and devastating. So yes, I say it's worse than a disaster that we'll never recover from. But the media doesn't tell us how bad it is because it's happening to poor people in a remote rural area and half the media is owned by the energy industry.

[DemReadingDU]

26. Well, how is this oil disaster going to affect us in the Midwest?

No shrimp nor oysters?

Gas going to $5 per gallon?

Other?


Edit - Yes this is going to be an economical and environmental disaster for those around the Gulf Coast, but what would make this oil blowout a truly devastating disaster for the country?

[HooptieWagon]

41. If the Missippippi outlet is closed, shipping will become much more expensive.

Oil supplies to the midwest coming in, grain and other crops going out. That's just one possible impact on the midwest.

[Radical Activist]

27. How many thousands of people will this kill?

Any idea how many thousands are killed or given lifelong illness by coal power plants every year?
How many are given cancer by the same agricultural chemicals that already destroy the Gulf Coast fishing industry for months of the year?

The real worst environmental disasters are being carried out every year by the same companies who own and advertise in the media. Don't let them tell you what the worst disasters are.

[Vinnie From Indy]

45. You assertions are all over the map

First you offer that this is not as severe of an environmental disaster as mountaintop removal or as bad as ag runoff. Now, you inject a completely different comparison about the effects of pollution from coal fired plants and ag chemicals being ingested by humans. What next?

The fact is that you have ZERO idea of what you are talking about and I am quite sure that most fair minded readers can easily see that your arguments are extremely silly and have no bearing on this situation.

[Radical Activist]

49. Two specific sources of pollutants is all over the map?

lol Please.

If my description of those two problems is all over the map its because the environmental and public health consequences of both problems are varied and large in number. That's what makes them more serious disasters.
Do some research on your own. The fact that you and most other people are so unaware of what happens every year from those two problems is discouraging. When this spill starts killing thousands of people and results in the extinction of plant and animal species then we can talk about it being the worst disaster this century.

[riskpeace]

33. They can't stop the increasing gush of oil into the Gulf of Mexico!

This is a huge catastrophe -- big time.

[Quantess]

2. Thank you for posting this article.

However, it probably doesn't qualify as Latest Breaking News. May I suggest the editorial forum, where it will stay on the first page for a long time? Welcome to DU!

[Scuba]

17. Thank you, I'll move it there

[HCE SuiGeneris]

4. Their dissolution? n/t

[Hawkeye-X]

5. Freeze BP and Halliburton's assets. Tie it to the cleanup costs

And place the fatcat execs in prison for life. Deport Dick Cheney to the Hague for war crimes and environmental crimes.

Hawkeye-X

[texanwitch]

6. I would make their prison time cleaning up the mess they made.

Everyday until the day they die.

[glitch]

51. I was going to say seppuku but your idea is better. nt

[whyverne]

7. I think they owe us at least 15 congressmen.

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

9. Nothing.

They'll declare bankruptcy and dissolve. When has any large corporation made good on things like this? Bhopal and Union Carbide? Not a dime. Exxon and the Prince William Sound spill? Squat. Why would this be any different?
What will come from this, I hope, is a renewed sense of care for the environment and maybe a rush to find an alternative to oil as our min energy source. :shrug:

[cascadiance]

10. I hope the courts don't use Exxon-Valdez as a precedent to whitewash this!

If BP gets off like Exxon did for their mess, this WILL happen again, if our country doesn't collapse before then with the debt and other damage from this!

[JerseygirlCT]

13. And how much of it will they ever actually pay? nt

[awoke_in_2003]

15. Glad I scanned down...

because I was gonna post: "It doesn't matter what they owe us. What will they pay?". The answer is, "Very little, is history holds".

[JerseygirlCT]

38. Yup.

I'm afraid that after much litigation (which will probably earn a number of lawyers on all sides a great deal of money), the US will be repaid very little indeed.

(And that's not really a knock on lawyers. More on the system.)

[Imajika]

16. Oh sure, they will pay..

...then pass the costs right on to the consumer.

Ultimately, we will all pay in the form of higher gas prices.

All the other companies will raise their prices as well.

They will say what effects one effects all, and that they have to move their prices up in line with the others.

And if gas prices shoot up, the economy is affected, and sadly, the party in power is adversely effected.

Nothing good will come of this. Even the feel good moment of punishing BP won't be real.

[Sherman A1]

18. They owe us a whole lot, they will pay.....

absolutely nothing.

[metapunditedgy]

23. The scalps of at least 20 executives who received bonuses

of >$100K last year.

For starters.

[The2ndWheel]

32. This is but a small part of it

World commerce as a whole is actually a larger catastrophe for the environment than one broken oil pipe. If the rig didn't explode, we were going to use the oil.

[Joanne98]

35. 10 billion dollars

[chrisa]

40. It will probably takes years to clean up.

The Gulf of Mexico will never be the same.

[CLANG]

42. The bastards will weasel out of it somehow - they'll end up with a net profit

[glinda]

46. BP can never repay for the thousands of dead animals, birds and fish. Never.

[Kablooie]

47. 1/2 of one quarter's profits.

But they will contribute a lot more to American lawyers to keep from paying people whose lives they have destroyed.

[Rhiannon12866]

48. K&R! Totally agree with your comments...

It's worse than we know now and will have repercussions that we cannot even imagine... ;(

Welcome to DU, Scuba! It's great to have you with us! :hi:

[SweepPicker]

50. In The End

we the American people will be footing this bill.

[Rhiannon12866]

52. You're right, more's the pity...

But money only goes so far and there will be permanent damage that no amount of money can fix. ;(

And a belated welcome to DU, SweepPicker! So glad to have you with us! :hi:

[The Green Manalishi]

53. All pollution should be fined at $1

Per molecule.