Denied, Decieved, Delayed by BP: Gulf Residents "On Their Knees" for Recompense

[unhappycamper]

Gulf Coast businesses are closing down as they fail to secure compensation payouts.


Denied, Decieved, Delayed by BP: Gulf Residents "On Their Knees" for Recompense
by Dahr Jamail
Published on Saturday, January 22, 2011 by Al-Jazeera-English

"I just got off the phone with Feinberg's people and I'm really upset," says seafood merchant Michelle Chauncey from Barataria, Louisiana.

Her business, which sells wholesale and retail crabs, has not provided her with an income since the end of May, and her home is being foreclosed.

Attorney Kenneth Feinberg's Washington-based firm, Feinberg Rozen, has been paid $850,000 a month by BP to administer a $20bn compensation fund and claims process for Gulf residents and fishermen affected by the Deepwater Horizon explosion last April.

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), which Feinberg manages, was set up after negotiations between BP and the Obama administration, but over recent months there has been growing concern among the Coast's residents that Feinberg is limiting compensation funds to claimants in order to decrease BP's liability.

Late last month, Feinberg told Bloomberg Television that he anticipates that about half of the $20bn fund should be enough to cover claims for economic losses.

[SoCalDem]

1. Disasters that affect jobs are always under-"fixed"

You can re-build a house, but rebuilding a long-term business is another story.

I suspect that many people in the fishing business (or any cyclical business) often deal in cash, and when cash is involved, it makes sense to report as little as possible to the IRS (especially in libertarian-leaning areas).. This is all well and good, UNTIL there is a major disaster and records are required, in order to even be considered for recompense. Even with meticulous records, no one will be "made whole".

For the fisherman who sold his catch for cash, or for the workers who were paid in cash, if they did not accurately record & pay taxes on every dime, they will have a hard time proving that they made "$XX,XXX.XX".

The small businesspeople also depend on their fellow "locals" to buy from them, and when a whole community is suddenly jobless/moneyless, their income suffers too.

People should have been offered a lump-sum buy out, so they could escape the toxic environs...if they desired.

This would have emptied out areas that could be cleaned up and allowed to lie fallow & recover. Their value could have been "frozen in time" with the people who left, getting first right of refusal, after a time...for the set value.

The logistics of cleaning up and caring for (or trying to) the people still there amid all the muck, is a mess of cataclysmic proportions.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Gulf businesses are in a doublebind:

They signed a document that they won't ever sue BP for damages/compensation and BP drags its heels are giving them their money.