The Carsey Institute at the University of New Hampshire studies the economically vulnerable in our society. One of their recent surveys caught my eye. As part of their Community and the Environment in Rural America (CERA) project, they surveyed residents of counties in Louisiana and Florida affected by the BP spill. There was considerable agreement between the residents of the two states on most trusted source of information about the spill (scientists, environmentalists) and least trusted sources (BP, blogs/websites). Likewise, in terms of response to the spill, BP and the federal government were held in contempt by survey respondents. However, there was one striking difference in perceptions concerned trust in local and state officials.
Respondents from Florida were much more likely to think their local and state governments were doing a poor or fair job responding to the spill, while Louisianans generally thought their local and state governments were doing a good or excellent job.
The study authors suggested that difference might have been due to Louisiana officials having more expertise in handling large crises thanks to their experiences during Katrina. Let me offer a much more cynical interpretation. Louisiana officials are better at disaster capitalism and corruption. Louisiana is home to the "spillionaires."
Propublica describes the circus of corruption in Louisiana in the aftermath of the spill as follows.
Some people profiteered from the spill by charging BP outrageous rates for cleanup. Others profited from BP claims money, handed out in arbitrary ways. So many people cashed in that they earned nicknames -- "spillionaires" or "BP rich." Meanwhile, others hurt by the spill ended up getting comparatively little.
Funny thing about the spillionaires. They are heavily connected to the Republican kingpins of the parishes where the oil washed ashore. In St. Bernard Parish, Craig Taffaro bashed BP, mugged for cameras with Bobby Jindal and Billy Nungesser, and set up a fiefdom to skim money from BP and the feds. It worked.
According to sales tax collections, Louisiana made out better than anywhere. Sales tax collections from Plaquemines Parish rose more than 71 percent, while St. Bernard saw the biggest jump of all. The parish collected almost $26.8 million in sales and lodging tax receipts in the six months after the spill, almost twice as much as over the same period in 2009. Flush with cash from cleanup and claims, many fishermen bought new toys, boats and trucks. Sales at the nearest Chevrolet dealer rose 41 percent.
While the Republican leadership of Louisiana went before every camera to complain about the Obama administration's handling of the spill and suspension of the deepwater drilling moratorium, they were using the crisis to bilk BP. On the one hand, that sounds like poetic justice. On the other hand, it was the most connected, not the most vulnerable, that benefited from booming BP. For example, Taffaro threw out a list of parish fishermen that should have been first in line for the "vessels of opportunity" program and replaced it with a list of politically connected folks looking to make a quick buck. Taffaro even gave himself a raise from $70,000 to $128,000.
And let's not forget Jindal and Nungesser's $380 million scam to build sand berms off the coast to catch the oil. Scientists and engineers scoffed at the idea, noting that the berms would not survive heavy surf or collect much oil, but would divert funds needs for coastal restoration projects and create additional damage from dredging sand. The eggheads turned out to be correct. Jindal's berms collected less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the oil, basically 1000 barrels from the millions that BP spilled. The berm project was, of course, doled out to one of Jindal's biggest contributors. Hopefully, voters in Louisiana will remember that Jindal slashed education funding while shilling for berms, but I doubt it.
So far, bilking BP has worked out well for the Republicans running state and local government in Louisiana. However, one might ask how long before BP uses the piles and piles of poorly documented reimbursement requests in court to cut off the gravy train. The real tragedy is that the people most severely impacted by the spill may also be the very same people left out when BP pulls the plug on reimbursements because of massive fraud.
The Carsey Institute survey also found a large difference between Florida and Louisiana residents in concern for the recovery of the wildlife. The folks in Florida are right to worry. The National Resource Damage Assessment is underway to document the long-term ecosystem impacts on the Gulf region from the BP spill. The recent spike in dolphin mortality is among many disturbing indicators. Physical deformities have also been found in marine life throughout the food web in the gulf.
Another sign of stress in the ecosystem without proven ties to the spill is appearing in the population of red snapper, a staple of Cajun cuisine. In recent weeks there has been a rising incidence of fish caught in Gulf waters between eastern Louisiana and western Florida with dark lesions and rotting fins, says James Cowan, an oceanographer at Louisiana State University. "I've never seen anything like it," he says.
The afflicted fish have been caught in "hot spots" along the Gulf Coast that range between 10 miles and 80 miles offshore, Mr. Cowan says. Among the spots, Mr. Cowan says, are areas off Pensacola, Fla.; Orange Beach, Ala.; and Mississippi—Gulf seas that were heavily oiled, he says.
Wall Street Journal, April 13, article by Jeffrey Ball
BP has been funding its own studies and been trying to deflect culpability in oil still lodged in sand, sediments, and marshes in the Gulf. They are clearly laying the groundwork for legal battles.
A BP spokeswoman says it's not clear how much of the oil along beaches came from its well.
The Republican assault on federal funding of science will certainly benefit BP. At a time when the government needs to be using the BP spill as an opportunity to systematically study the long-term effects of dumping oil and methane into sensitive ecosystems, research funding will likely be cut off or cut back. Instead of solid empirical evidence about how the spill affects marine life, BP is likely to only have to contend with anecdotal and incomplete studies, which they will refute with their well-compensated experts.
The Carsey Institute is interested in how perceptions in the Gulf change over time.
Follow-up surveys could determine whether Gulf Coast residents’ perceptions about the effects of the spill on their communities have changed as the memories and direct impacts of the spill grow distant. CERA surveys, such as the one conducted in the Gulf in the wake of the BP spill, can gather important subjective information about perceptions of changes occurring in rural America. The findings can be utilized by local leaders, policy makers, and disaster response teams to help foster healthy and sustainable communities that can rebound from (and perhaps prevent) even large-scale disasters like the BP oil spill.
Those perceptions are more likely to reflect reality if the stories about the shenanigans of the spillionaires get attention. So far, the Republicans in Louisiana have been able to profit personally and politically from the mess, while doing nothing to improve the long-term health of the Gulf and communities that depend on it to survive.