Dear Editor,
Politicians and British Petroleum, (BP), have blitzed the obvious damage due to the Gulf oil clearly caused by the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, 2010. Federal and state authorities made BP and others pay billions required to cover much public, economic damage clearly due to their negligence. The public and private property damage was covered by their payments. These BP businesses have many more billions left after promised payments. Many of those have been done and paid for. But thousands of individuals have also suffered physical injuries, including blindness and other eye ailments, cancer attributable to petroleum product exposure, chronic skin conditions not responsive to medication, chronic respiratory ailments, chronic headaches, and other health issues which can be linked to exposure to oil and dispersants. Those still have not been paid, even now after four years. BP got their attorneys to work with lawyers for the injured to arrive at the ‘settlement.’ That settlement was approved by the New Orleans federal judge who had coverage of these personal injuries caused by the oil blowout, which was to compensate people injured during the course of the cleanup and to provide for governmental entities because of environmental damage. BP and others liable had their lawyers enter the settlement concerning losses these defendants caused. Since the settlement was made public, every attempt to enforce it was appealed. Nothing was said disputing the oil clearly caused bodily injuries. They don’t say there was no bodily injury to these people. The at-fault people keep saying the settlement does not work, appealing what they agreed. The physically injured even now wait to receive any payments for them. The reality is very different from the big headlines about the billions BP supposedly has paid. The reality is that poor people in need of medical care are waiting and waiting for the settlement to work for them.
T.A. Leonard
Milton
This article originally appeared on Santa Rosa Press Gazette: No settlement for those injured in 2010 BP blowout