10 years after oil spill, will BP funds help Mississippi make up losses from coronavirus?
Ten years ago Monday, when an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil platform killed 11 people, the effects of the resulting spill reached South Mississippi long before the oil.
Tourists stopped coming to the Coast, and teams of workers roamed the warm sand in hazmat suits instead of families in bathing suits. Consumers worried about the safety of seafood from the Gulf of Mexico. Businesses closed.
The explosion happened on April 20, 2010. Now 10 years later, a portion of the $2.2 billion BP paid Mississippi in damages could help Mississippi get through the economic crisis caused by the new coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re dealing with unprecedented times right now,” said Sen. Scott DeLano, R-Biloxi, a member of the Senate appropriations committee. He envisions many demands for assistance to help Mississippi’s economy as part of the COVID-19 response.
The Coast delegation is looking at every opportunity available to help strengthen the economy and operate the state, he said — “Including but not limited to the BP settlement.”
What that means
There are different pots of money in the BP settlement. Some are directed for environmental projects and others for economic projects to boost the local economy after it was set back by the oil spill. Millions of dollars already have been spent in South Mississippi and other areas of the state.
South Mississippi leaders fought to get 75% of the $750 million in economic damages directed to fund projects in the the lower six counties most affected by the oil spill rather than throughout the state. The money will be paid over 17 years and flow into a Gulf Coast Restoration Fund.
The remaining 25% is directed for road and bridge improvements across the state as part of the agreement reached in legislative special session.
The Legislature will decide how the money should be used on the Coast, with an advisory board created to give local leaders a voice in the process.
In October, the Gulf Coast Restoration Fund Advisory Board considered 119 projects and recommend 14 to the state Legislature to be funded at a cost of $85.5 million. Among the favored projects were $32.5 million for USM’s Ocean Enterprise project in Gulfport, $18 million to help build a YMCA in Gulfport, $8.8 million toward a parking garage in downtown Ocean Springs and millions more for technical schools and other projects.
“That was before COVID-19,” DeLano said.
The projects weren’t done deals but recommendations, he said, which the legislators could follow or come up with their own list of priorities.
“We always said we’re going to try to make these dollars go the the highest-impact projects,” he said, and those priorities may be greatly changed by the pandemic.
“I do not believe we know what damages have been made to our state because of COVID-19,” he said.
Keeping the state operating
Gov. Tate Reeves called the economic problems from coronavirus in Mississippi “insane,” as nearly 130,000 people have filed for unemployment between March 14 and April 11.
Reeves said Friday the $1.25 billion Mississippi and other states will receive from the federal CARES Act can’t be used for revenue losses.
“We’re looking at every option,” Reeves said, as the state loses money every day from the decrease in payroll taxes, in casino taxes since all the casinos were closed on March 16, and in gasoline taxes as residents shelter-in-place.
While the BP settlement fund money has to go through the appropriations process in the state Legislature, the governor’s office has control of how Mississippi spends the Restore Act money and other funds directed to the Gulf Coast states from federal fines paid by BP. Some of those funds are for economic projects and could be redirected to coronavirus recovery.
Enduring disasters
In many ways, the coronavirus pandemic is similar to the Deepwater Horizon crisis of 2010 in South Mississippi.
Ten years ago there were daily press conferences, the National Guard was activated and health testing was under way for cleanup workers who were outfitted in protective gear, now called PPE.
The uncertainty of how long it would take before the oil well was capped was as real in 2010 as the concern is today about how long the coronavirus shutdown will last.
It took 87 days, from April 20 until July 15, until the well was capped in 2010. In that time, NOAA estimates 3.19 million barrels of oil were released into the Gulf of Mexico. The cleanup of the beaches took another year.
It happened 80 miles south of his docks in Gulfport, said Louis Skrmetta, a third-generation owner of Ship Island Excursions that was started by his grandfather in 1926.
“Business dropped down to about zero,” he recalls. On the Fourth of July they took 11 people out to Ship Island. “We normally carry about 1,100 people on the Fourth of July,” he said.
It wasn’t just the economic loss that the people of South Mississippi suffered, he said. It was the loss of dolphins and fish, the environmental damage and the effects on people’s health, he said.
“Gulf dolphins aren’t doing well,” he said. “Their numbers dropped significantly since BP.”
The oil was treated with dispersants to break it up near the well and near the shores. Planes flew over at night and dropped dispersant and Skrmetta said at times, “It was so strong we couldn’t breathe.”
Progress for the money
The BP money has already helped fund the Mississippi Aquarium in Gulfport, new ecological exhibits at Infinity Science Center, a connector road under construction in Jackson County and millions of dollars in improvements.
Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality oversees the Deepwater Horizon restoration efforts in the state that have paid for oyster reef reconstruction, built a Hancock Living Shoreline and other projects to protect water and restore coastal lands.
At the 2019 Restoration Summit, MDEQ announced new projects that would be funded and gave an overview of what’s been accomplished in Mississippi with the BP funds.
This money for Mississippi comes from three main sources: the RESTORE Act, Natural Resource Damage Assessment and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Gulf Environmental Benefit Fund.
Chris Wells, interim MDEQ executive director, said 105 restoration projects have been implemented and are under way for a total of $576 million in obligated funds.
“We have directed approximately 80% to ecological restoration and 20% to economic restoration,” he said.
Mississippi’s total settlement payments from these three sources is $1.35 billion over 15 years, leaving $774 million still to come for the state.
Lessons learned
Skrmetta said it is so important for South Mississippi to remember lessons learned from the BP disaster, and understand that the economy is directly tied to clean beaches and healthy fish.
The 10th anniversary of the oil spill comes just before the 50th anniversary of Earth Day on April 22.
The real lesson was nobody was ready, said Sam Sankar, former deputy chief council of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill commission and now senior vice president of litigation for Earthjustice.
“We trusted the oil industry to consider the risks. We trusted them to control the risks and the damage that would result,” he said.
“Ten years later we’re no better prepared than we were back then,” he said.
This story was originally published April 20, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
