On April 20, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon mobile drilling unit exploded, caught fire and sank in the Gulf of Mexico, resulting in the death of 11 workers and injury of 17 others. The damaged oil well discharged oil and natural gas for 87 days after the explosion, resulting in the release of approximately 3.19 million barrels (134 million gallons) of oil into the Gulf—the largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history. Six years later, on April 4, 2016, a federal court in New Orleans entered a consent decree resolving civil claims against BP. This historic settlement resolves the U.S. government’s civil penalty claims under the Clean Water Act, the governments’ claims for natural resources damage claims under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, and also implements a related settlement of economic damage claims of the Gulf States and local governments. Taken together, this resolution of civil claims is worth more than $20 billion and is the largest settlement with a single entity in the history of federal law enforcement.
Under the consent decree BP will pay a CWA civil penalty of $5.5 billion (plus interest), $8.1 billion in natural resource damages (this includes $1 billion BP already committed to pay for early restoration) under OPA, up to an additional $700 million (some of which is in the form of accrued interest) for adaptive management or to address injuries to natural resources that are currently unknown but could come to light in the future, and $600 million for other claims. Under the economic damages settlement noted above, BP will pay $4.9 billion to the Gulf States (Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas) to resolve their economic damage claims. In other, related agreements, BP will pay up to another $1 billion to resolve similar claims the company faces from various local governments in the Gulf region. This settlement includes both the largest civil penalty ever paid by any defendant under any environmental statute, and the largest recovery of damages for injuries to natural resources.
Restoring Affected Ecosystems
Under the 2012 RESTORE Act (Resources and Ecosystems Sustainability, Tourist Opportunities and Revived Economies of the Gulf Coast States Act), which Congress enacted in 2012 in response to the spill, 80 per- cent of the $5.5 billion CWA penalty is allocated for envi- ronmental restoration, economic recovery projects, and tourism and seafood promotion in the ve Gulf states. As noted in the RESTORE Act, the state-federal Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council (Council) administers a portion of these funds known as the Council-Selected Restoration Component to “undertake projects and programs, using the best available science, which would restore and protect the natural resources, ecosystems, sheries, marine and wildlife habitats, beaches, coastal wetlands, and economy of the Gulf Coast.” The Council is focusing on 10 key watersheds across the Gulf to concentrate and leverage available funds to address critical ecological needs in high-priority locations. The Council developed a public-reviewed Funded Priorities List (FPL) that will direct the use of funds under the RESTORE Act. Some of the items on the initial FPL include restoring over 200,000 acres of valuable forest and wetland habitat through hydrologic restoration activities (e.g., back lling 16.5 miles of abandoned oil and gas canals) and protecting existing coastal ecosystems by plugging 11 abandoned oil and gas wells. For more information, including fact sheets and inter- active project area maps, refer to the Gulf Coast Ecosystem Restoration Council website.
Addressing Natural Resources Damages
The Deepwater Horizon spill is also subject to the provisions of the OPA, which addresses pre- venting, responding to, and paying for oil pollution incidents in navigable waters, adjoining shorelines and the exclusive economic zone of the United States. Under the authority of OPA, a group of federal and state trustees—composed of representatives from four federal agencies and all ve Gulf states—was established on behalf of the public. As required under OPA, the trustees conducted a natural resource damage assessment and, in February 2016, released the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill: Final Programmatic Damage Assessment and Restoration Plan and Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PDARP/PEIS), which describes the trustees’ assessment and proposed restoration plan. The trustees also released a supplementary document, the Plan for Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Natural Resource Injury Restoration: An Overview, which provides an easy-to-read overview of key components of the PDARP/PEIS.
As outlined in the April 2016 consent decree, BP will make 15 annual pay-
ments to the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Natural Resource Damage (NRD) Fund beginning in April 2017 and continuing through 2031. According to the restoration plan, the NRD funding will support Gulf restoration projects within 13 categories selected by the federal and state trustees to meet ve restoration goals (see ow chart). The nal plan proposes a distributed governance structure that assigns an imple- mentation group for each of the restoration areas. Each implementation group will develop project-speci c restoration plans for their respective restoration area, consis- tent with the restoration funding alloca- tions. As NRD funds are received from BP, a series of payments will be distributed to each implementation group over the course of 15 years. Each implementation group can determine a project-speci c restora- tion plan development schedule that most appropriately bene ts the restoration type. (Note: all project-specic restoration plans will be subject to a public comment and review period.)
Public involvement was an integral part of the development of the comprehensive restoration plan. The trustees engaged the public soon after the spill, including a formal scoping process in early 2011. These initial efforts helped inform the trustees about the types of restoration and environmental impacts important to consider in the nal plan. The trustees have kept the public informed about the progress of restoration and sought continued input on restoration projects by holding public meetings and communicating by email and through the Gulf Spill Restoration website.
Source: Nonpoint Source News-Notes, October 2016, Issue #100
For more information contact Nanciann Regalado, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment Of ce, 1875 Century Blvd., Atlanta, GA 30345. Phone: 678-296-6805 Email: nanciann_regalado@fws.gov
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