NEW ORLEANS — Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Gulf Coast, killing 11 and sending 134 million gallons of crude gushing into the ocean, the effects of the nation’s worst offshore oil spill are still being felt.
Oil company BP paid billions of dollars in damages, propelling ambitious coastal restoration projects across five states. Yet cleanup workers and local residents who suffered health impacts they attribute to the oil spill have struggled to have their cases heard in court and few have received significant compensation.
Conservation groups say the spill catalyzed innovative restoration work across the Gulf Coast, but are alarmed at the recent halt of a flagship land-creation project in Louisiana. As the Trump administration expands offshore oil and gas, they are concerned the best opportunities for rebuilding the Gulf Coast are slipping away.
Tying health problems to the spill remains hard to prove in court
In the coastal community of Lafitte in southeast Louisiana, Tammy Gremillion is celebrating Easter Sunday, the anniversary of the April 20 spill, without her daughter. She remembers warning Jennifer against joining a cleanup crew tasked with containing the spill for BP.
“But I couldn’t stop her — they were offering these kids lots of money,” Gremillion said. “They didn’t know the dangers. They didn’t do what they should have to protect these young people.”
Jennifer worked knee-deep in oil for months, returning home reeking of fumes, covered in black splotches, breaking out in rashes and suffering headaches. She also was exposed to Corexit, an EPA-approved chemical applied on and below the water to disperse oil, which has been linked to health problems.
In 2020, Jennifer died of leukemia, a blood cancer that can be caused by exposure to oil.
Gremillion, who broke down in tears as she recounted her daughter’s death, is “1,000 percent confident” that exposure to toxins during the cleanup caused the cancer.
She filed a lawsuit against BP in 2022, although the allegations have been difficult to establish in court. Gremillion’s suit is one of a small number of cases still pending.
An investigation by The Associated Press previously found all but a handful of roughly 4,800 lawsuits seeking compensation for health problems linked to the oil spill have been dismissed and only one has been settled.
In a 2012 settlement, BP paid ill workers and coastal residents $67 million, but this amounted to no more than $1,300 each for nearly 80 percent of those seeking compensation.
Attorneys from the Downs Law Group, representing Gremillion and around 100 others in cases against BP, say the company leveraged procedural technicalities to block victims from getting their day in court.
In court filings, BP denied allegations that oil exposure caused health problems and attacked the credibility of medical experts brought by plaintiffs.
The environmental impact was devastating, recalled PJ Hahn, who served on the frontlines as a Southeast Louisiana coastal management official. He watched the oil eat away at barrier islands and marsh around his community in Plaquemines Parish until “it would just crumble like a cookie in hot coffee, just break apart.”
Oyster beds suffocated, reefs were blanketed in chemicals, and the fishing industry tanked. Pelicans diving for dead fish emerged from the contaminated waters smeared in a black sheen.
