Both sides are damned if they do, damned if they don't.
The Times-Picayune's indefatigable business writer, Rebecca Mowbray, reports this morning that BP has already begun paying out claims to more than a thousand fishers and shrimpers whose livelihoods have disappeared in the spreading cloud of oil from the Deepwater Horizon wreck.
Neither the company nor the claimants are overjoyed.
The fishers complain that BP is using every lawyer/accountant yardstick to minimize payouts. Rather than basing claims strictly on income, the company is using criteria such as whether claimants owned the vessels they worked on to classify fisheries workers, resulting in payouts that don't represent real income losses.
On the other side, BP's lawyers are likely cringing as each check is handed over. Not because of the amounts, usually $2,500-$5,000, but because each payment represents another tiny admission of responsibility for a massive environmental and economic disaster that appears will only escalate.
The checks aren't payments in full, closing each case, but merely down payments on "legitimate and objectively verifiable" claims for economic losses. They are, in other words, deposits. For the easy cases.
"For people who have what I woud call complex claims, we're going to resolve those as well. It's going to take a little bit longer," [company spokesman Darryl] Willis said.
A little longer.
For five years, people in South Louisiana have gotten pretty savvy about claims, dealing with entities like FEMA, SBA, Road Home, insurance companies and building contractors (we'll set aside the issue of toxic Chinese drywall for the time being). They are not likely to accept lowball sums or settlements based on conditions that are bound to worsen over time. A fisherman may accept a check for $5,000 as a down payment, but he or she is unlikely to agree that a season's losses, even into six figures, represent the total losses incurred.
They will fight for what they believe to be just compensation for their losses, even sacrificing a portion of their eventual settlements to attorneys. Because they've been screwed too many times before.
Still, if the damages from the disaster are as widespread and long-term as many fear, their jobs may be gone forever, and no amount of compensation is going to make up for a lifetime of income. Many will leave the area, despite their deep love for the home place. Housing prices will decline, starting with the coastal areas, but likely spreading to the metro areas as the economic losses cascade. These losses will not be limited to Louisiana by any means, but echo up and down the Gulf Coast as tourism businesses are affected.
It's not too outrageous to predict a slow but inexorable mass exodus from Gulf states as the long-term economic impact of the spill/spew ripples outward. Such a mass displacement, possibly larger than the diaspora of "Okies" from the Dust Bowl states, will alter the nature of our society in ways we can't begin to understand now.
Still, we're going to have to try. With each day, the cumulative impact of the oil on life forms and lifestyles grows. Planning for the consequences of this event should be as great a priority for our country as stopping the flow and keeping the oil offshore.
A bit of lagniappe: If you are in the area today, please consider attending the Gulf Aid concert at Mardi Gras World in downtown New Orleans. It is a benefit concert to raise funds for wetlands restoration and economic aid to Gulf fishers and their families. The concert will go on, rain or shine, from noon to 10 pm.
Artists performing will include:
Lenny Kravitz, John Legend, Mos Def, Allen Toussaint ,The Voice of the Wetlands Allstars (featuring Tab Benoit, Dr. John, Cyril Neville, George Porter Jr., Waylon Thibodeaux, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Johnny Sansone, and Johnny Vidacovich), Zachary Richard, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk, Soul Rebels Brass Band, Beausoleil, Steve Riley and The Mamou Playboys w Jon Cleary, Marcia Ball, Irvin Mayfield's Playhouse Review , Kermit Ruffins and the BBQ Swingers, , Rebirth Brass Band, Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Shamarr Allen, Jeremy Davenport, MyNameIsJohnMichael
As the vice-president would say, it's a big f'ing deal.