The Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico (also referred to as the “BP Oil Spill”) is the largest oil spill that has ever occurred anywhere in the world due to a petroleum industry accident. On April 20th 2010 an explosion occurred on the Deepwater Horizon a deep water drilling platform that was located in the Gulf of Mexico. The explosion on the platform, which was owned by BP and operated by Macondo Prospect, killed 11 people and injured seventeen other workers. The oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico for three months before the well was capped. The damages done to the water and nearby costal communities are still being felt.

Over the three months it was estimated that around 53,000 barrels of oil every day were being released into the waters of the gulf. At the time the well head was capped, on July 15th 2010 many reports showed that nearly 5 million barrels of oil had leaked from the deepwater well. An area that extended out 80 square miles from the leaking well was classified as a “kill zone” by scientists. The effects of the disaster continued to grow even after the well was capped. In July 287 miles of Louisiana’s coastline had been affected by the spill. By November that number had grown to over 320 miles of shoreline. The failure by the oil company to effectively cleanup after the disaster resulted in long term problems for local wildlife, tourism, fisherman, and many other businesses near the affected shores. Nearly a year after the well had been capped the oil; spread by the gulf’s currents had contaminated around 491 miles of shoreline across Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

BP has been declared officially responsible for the spill by the United States Government and steps have been taken to ensure the company covers the entire cost of cleanup and any other expenses or damages. BP launched their own investigation and concluded there were mistakes made by the company that led to the spill. Shortly after the spill the company established a twenty billion dollar fund to pay for claims brought by the residents and businesses affected by the spill. A report in July 2011 showed that around $4.7 billion dollars has already been paid using the fund to 198,475 people and businesses. Currently there are millions of unprocessed claims and the number is growing by the thousands each week.

This disaster has caused lawmakers to take a hard look at current company liability laws. While BP has agreed under immense public pressure to pay for all clean up costs and any punitive damages that prove reasonable, they are not required to by law. The current Oil Pollution Act that was passed in 1990 says that a company can only be held accountable for all clean up costs and suits are limited to 75 million dollars in non clean up related charges providing gross negligence can not be proven. Many law makers are pushing to have that amount raised to 10 billion dollars to provide more incentive to companies who could be dismissive of mechanical problems that cost more to remedy than the cost of cleaning up.

Find out more about Environmental Pollution Liability here and how Beacon Hill Associates can help you.

Find out more about Environmental Pollution Liability http://www.b-h-a.com/partner-one-environmental.aspx and how Beacon Hill Associates can help you http://www.b-h-a.com/Home.aspx.

Author Bio: Find out more about Environmental Pollution Liability here and how Beacon Hill Associates can help you.

Category: Advice
Keywords: Environment, Business, Industry, Insurance, Oil