Feinberg draws ire of Gulf claims filers -- again
Back when Ken Feinberg said BP might get away with only paying out half of the $20 billion it set aside for Gulf spill claims, he was considered an independent overseer of the distribution of BP's money. That's changed since since Judge Carl J. Barbier's ruling that Feinberg is, in fact, functioning on behalf of BP. And the anger against Feinberg is beginning to reach the level of anger against BP itself.
As fishermen, business owners and others affected by the BP oil spill examine the proposed framework for payment of damage claims, resigned acceptance of the process has eroded into frustration and anger.
Feinberg is, of course, the most intense focus of their acrimony.
“They need to stop introducing him as the $20-billion man,” said Bourg crab-trap maker Don Authement. “He preys on the poor and the helpless.”
Rather than giving out money to fairly compensate for what was lost and what may be lost in the future, critics say, the BP claims system from the start was designed to insulate the company from civil liability by paying a pittance to those damaged.
Only a third of the claims thus far have been paid -- many of them large payments to to folks who, while justified in demanding their pound of BP flesh, are far better able to absorb the financial blow dealt by the Macondo blow-out -- like resort and co-op owners. The salt of the earth workers of the Gulf have received little rightful compensation.
Feinberg is accepting comments through Wednesday on a plan for final claims payments based on 2008 and 2009 income averaged together, less documented losses incurred from May through December 2010. The payments would be twice the net losses, and four times net losses for those in the oyster industry. The report commissioned by Feinberg’s claims group says the oyster industry will take longer to recover. In all cases, money already paid out on an emergency basis is to be deducted from the totals.
That formula, on its face, is causing angst.
“There is anxiety and confusion which is rolling over into anger because there is no guarantee our industry will bounce back,” said Kimberly Chauvin, owner of the Mariah Jade Shrimp Company in Chauvin. “In 2008 we had Gustav and Ike. You have people in Terrebonne Parish who were slammed hard, we were shut down. In 2009 we were still reeling from 2008. People were still putting their homes back together. There were still others who were still affected by Katrina. This must be done on a case-by-case basis. Allow the people to pick their years, as long as they prove their taxes.”
Feinberg has based many of his payouts, to fishermen and oystermen for example, on a scientific assessment that the Gulf will be back to normal by 2012.
The report was written by John W. Tunnell Jr., associate director at Texas A&M University’s Harte Research Institute, who worked as a paid consultant for BP while doing his research, and delivered his report to Feinberg on January 21. The report was to assess the recovery of shrimp, crabs, oysters and finfish in the wake of the spill. Clearly, time was of the essence. He says, in his summary:
“...Making an exact call for the time of recovery for any fishery group after a major spill is impossible. However, it is realized that it is very important to settle claims with individuals and businesses on a timely basis, so the expert opinions for the four fishery groups given in this report are as reasonable as possible at this time.”
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“I didn’t do a study or analysis of the entire ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico,” he said. “It was a general statement about … a broad area of the northern Gulf of Mexico. In any given locality, Barataria Bay where heavy oil went in, those are the ones that are going to take another four or six, eight or twelve years. It depends on the amount of oil and what conditions are and what cleanup, if any, is done.”
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“This was an expert opinion drawn from working on oil spills for the past 35 years,” Tunnell said. “I stepped into it because I felt like it could be of help to moving the (claims) process along. Some people have attacked me for getting into it at all but the scientist needs to be involved in helping.”
Fishermen who have reviewed the report say it doesn’t help them much, but it helps BP a lot.
The report, prepared by a respected colleague under a tight time frame, is not something a lot of scientists who also deal with marine issues are itching to talk about, particularly when it comes to publicly voicing criticism.
There are, of course, those who openly disagree, though gently. Says Richard Pierce, senior scientist and director of the Center for Ecotoxicology in Sarasota, Fla.:
“There are not enough definitive studies yet to draw conclusions as to what the long-term impacts will be on biology, chemistry and toxicology … If I were doing it I would have stated it more as a hypothesis that needs to be tested rather than a foregone conclusion, although I think he indicated that in the text.”
Nicholls Sate University biology professor Earl Melancon said it is important to remember that the report was bought and paid for.
“It is a commissioned report and doesn’t fall into any type of category like a final report or a status report,” Melancon said. “Those are usually paid for too. But this report doesn’t have any focus other than that research. It summarizes a basic understanding and knowledge. I think Wes Tunnell’s report was decent when you consider that Feinberg’s group gave him two weeks to do it … I look at it as decent, as a general-summary report.”
Fisheries, Melancon said, must be viewed from a monetary and a biology standpoint.
“We do not know how much oil is buried in the sediment, how much we don’t have a handle on not just across the Gulf but in selected areas,” Melancon said. “How then do you bring that aspect of monetary settlement?”
We already know Gulf seafood is considered suspect by many consumers -- and rightly so.
“When consumers have something in the market that goes bad, if there is a tainted market it doesn’t matter whether it’s the east side of the Mississippi or the west side,” Melancon said. “If one tainted animal gets on the market it is going to impact the entire northern Gulf of Mexico fishery.”
Eric Blanchard, owner of Cajun Crab reports that:
...The crabs he’s been buying lately aren’t surviving as much in transit as other crabs do in cold weather.
“They are not living as long as they should,” he said. Out of 10 boxes of crabs shipped, the equivalent of a boxful has been reported dead on arrival in some cases. “That’s my loss,” he said. “I have to refund that from the shipment.”
He doesn’t know if the increased mortality has anything to do with the oil spill, not yet.
But then again, he and others in the fishing business said, neither do the scientists or the man who is offering them a settlement based on their reports.
Environmental writer Rowan Jacobsen, author of Shadows on the Gulf, told Gulf Watchers that Tunnell is well respected, and that the oysters estimate sounds right.
"It's around two years for new oysters to go from zero to market size in the Gulf, but in areas where reefs were entirely killed, meaning no adults are around to make new larvae, it could be much longer. The bigger issues for shrimp and crabs are a dead zone the size of New Jersey each summer (thanks to the Mississippi River), the continuing erosion of the marshes, and ridiculously low prices due to Chinese imports."
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