BP's Compensatory Responsibilities

Isn't that just like human nature? Tucking the conscience and ethics away in a corner - as high up as possible, so it's a real stretch to reach them and pluck them down for later use - in favour of diligently taking advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. Something like the sudden loss of law and order when disaster strikes and people begin looting, not to waste unexpected opportunities.

In this instance it is the opportunities that presented themselves in the chaos and rush of a presidential order to begin compensating townsfolk living directly in the wake of an unprecedented Gulf Coast oil spill a year ago when BP was desperately attempting to contain the Gulf of Mexico disaster in the wake of a rented oil rig being stricken and eleven men working on it drowning, with the following runaway oil gusher.

The U.S. government negotiated (furiously strong-armed) a $20-billion claims compensation and clean-up package for Gulf Coast residents from BP. And then of course there was the billions consumed in various other initiatives to try to control the oil spillage. The company is preparing to sell off assets to the value of $30-billion to help pay their bills. It is, needless to say, their responsibility.

On the good news side of the equation are stories coming out of the area that in most instances the ocean itself appears to have helped considerably in the clean-up by pushing the grease and oil away from land, and absorbing what it could. That beaches and wetlands are no longer impacted, with oil contamination nowhere to be seen. Aquatic life is returning to normal, and birds normally seen in the area are also returning. Nature coming to its own rescue.

And then there are other stories, describing the "BP rich", the new "spillionaries"; Gulf towns and their residents who have taken what some might consider to be excessive advantage of spectacular opportunities to do well by themselves. Such as cleanup companies submitting bills for payment not bothering to complicate matters by itemizing things, and by submitting documentation with their invoices. Stamped paid.

A subcontractor billing BP $15,400 monthly for rental of a generator that it usually rents out for $1,500 a month. A company charging BP over $1-million a month for land that it had formerly rented out for less than $1,700 a month. "This parish raped BP. At the end of the day, it really just frustrates me. I'm an elected official. I have guilt by association", confessed the chairman of the St.Bernard Parish Council.

People living in areas that hadn't recovered from the depredations of Hurricane Katrina, where almost every home was flooded, made compensation claims to BP for payback following the spill. Money flowed generously to people claiming their lives, their properties, their livelihoods had been deleteriously impacted by the oil spill crisis.

People who vituperatively blasted BP, a foreign enterprise that degraded the U.S. coastline and created a disaster for the environment and for thousands of people who depended on the marshes and the oceans to supply them with their livelihood, went out of their way to take BP to the cleaners. It was clear to many that businesses that had been hit by the recession, not the spill, were receiving BP compensation.

"I don't understand how BP is just giving its money out like this. Give it to the people who deserve it", said the manager at St.Bernard's off-track betting parlour, noting the increase in customers gambling claims money, increasing her business to the extent that employees had to work overtime to accommodate all the new business.