One year after BP's Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, the number of lawsuits against the oil giant continues to mount.
Ryan Lambert is enraged.
The owner of a charter fishing business, he had always supported the oil industry in his home state of Louisiana.
He previously trusted BP, and the rest of the oil industry, to do the right thing in case an accident happened. But not any more. "I'm seeing people starving to death and BP won't pay them," said Lambert.
His business drop of 94 per cent in the last year has cost him more than $1.1mn, he told Al Jazeera, "They won't pay me, they owe me well over a million dollars just for last year, and all they do is send more papers to fill out."
He continued:
They know what they did is wrong and they still won't pay me. I'm done playing their games. All they are doing is starving people out and trying to get them to take the one-time $25,000 payment and give up their right to sue. I know thousands of people in the fishing industry, and I don't know one person who has been made whole yet.
In the aftermath of BP's disaster that began on April 20 of last year, the oil giant promised those whose livelihoods had been damaged that they would be made "whole" and fully compensated for their losses.
On June 1, 2010, upon the announcement that they were instituting a $20bn compensation fund to do this, BP board chairman Henric Svanberg stated: "[President Obama] is frustrated because he cares about the small people, and we care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people."
Lambert vehemently disagrees.
"I want the entire country to know, you cannot trust what BP or [what] the oil industry promises you. I'm most definitely taking up litigation against BP," he added.
Lambert is not alone.
The Centre for Biological Diversity (CBD) is a group that uses the law to protect the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive. CBD has an unparallelled record of legal successes, with 93 per cent of their lawsuits having resulted in favourable outcomes. And, now they are suing BP for $19bn.
"We have sued them under the Clean Water Act," Kieran Suckling, the executive director and founder of the CBD told Al Jazeera. "The way the Act works is it levies a fine based on the number of gallons [of oil] spilled and how malicious or criminal BP was acting when the spill occurred. So a big part of the suit is about determining how many barrels were spilled, and BP's level of negligence."
Suckling explained that, depending on BP's level of negligence, the fine they face per barrel of oil released into the Gulf of Mexico, "could range from $1,300 to $4,300 per barrel if they are found criminally negligent."
CBD believes BP released 5.5 million barrels of oil, and is awaiting the official estimate from the federal government, which has not been released yet.
Environmental effects
This March, US interior secretary Kenneth Salazar approved the first deep water drilling exploration plan since BP's disaster, giving Shell Offshore the go-ahead to drill three exploration wells in water 2,950 feet deep, after his department's environmental assessment plan found there was "no possibility of significant environmental effects".
Prior to this, CBD, GRN, the Natural Resources Defence Council, and the Sierra Club filed a formal notice of intent to sue Salazar for ignoring marine-mammal protection laws when approving offshore oil and gas activities in the Gulf.
CBD has already filed suit against Salazar for concluding that oil drilling poses no possible risk of significant environmental effects. Furthermore, for failing to assess possible impacts on the Gulf of Mexico's endangered whales and sea turtles, his continued approval of offshore drilling plans in the Gulf without environmental review, and for his withholding emails, phone logs, and meeting notes documenting his interactions with oil-industry lobbyists since he became secretary of the interior.
About the suit CBD is preparing to file against Salazar for ignoring marine mammal protection laws when approving offshore oil and gas activities in the gulf, Suckling is blunt:
In the wake of the beginning of BP's disaster last year, it became apparent the Obama administration has not followed the Endangered Species Act, among other laws, so despite claims they've reformed the agency, they are still not following these Acts or the National Policy Act. So it's business as usual with a little window dressing. They are still not obeying the law.
For the entire story as written by Dahr Jahmall, see Aljazeera In Depth "BP's Criminal Negligence Exposed"
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