15 years after Deepwater Horizon oil spill, lawsuits stall and restoration is incomplete

NEW ORLEANS — Fifteen years after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded off the Gulf Coast, killing 11 and sending 134 million gallons (500 million liters) 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 and 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% 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% 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.

BP declined to comment on pending litigation. In court filings, BP denied allegations that oil exposure caused health problems and attacked the credibility of medical experts brought by plaintiffs.

Controversy over coastal restoration

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. Tens of thousands of seabirds and sea turtles were killed, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Since then, ''significant progress'' has been made restoring Gulf habitats and ecosystems, according to The​ Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustee Council, a group of state and federal agencies tasked with managing restoration funded by penalties levied against BP.

The council says more than 300 restoration projects worth $5.38 billion have been approved in the Gulf of Mexico, which President Donald Trump renamed the Gulf of America. The projects include acquiring wetlands in Mississippi to protect nesting areas for birds, rebuilding reefs along Pensacola Bay in Florida and restoring around 4 square miles (11 square kilometers) of marsh in Lake Borgne near New Orleans.

While a tragedy, the spill "galvanized a movement — one that continues to push for a healthier, more resilient coast,'' said Simone Maloz, campaign director for Restore the Mississippi River Delta, a conservation coalition.

The influx of billions of dollars in penalties paid by BP "allowed us to think bigger, act faster and rely on science to guide large-scale solutions,'' she added.

Yet what many conservationists see as the flagship of the restoration projects funded by the Deepwater Horizon disaster payout — an approximately $3 billion effort to divert sediment from the Mississippi River to rebuild 21 square miles (54 square kilometers) of land in southeast Louisiana — has stalled over concerns of its impact on the livelihoods of local communities and dolphin populations.

Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has said the project would ''break our culture" by harming local oyster and shrimp fisheries due to the influx of freshwater. Earlier this month, his administration paused the project for 90 days, citing its high costs, and its future remains uncertain.

More offshore drilling planned for Gulf

The Trump administration is seeking to sell more offshore oil and gas leases, which the industry trade group American Petroleum Institute called ''a big step forward for American energy dominance.''

BP announced an oil discovery in the Gulf last week and plans more than 40 new wells in the next three years. The company told the AP it has improved safety standards and oversight.

''We remain keenly aware that we must always put safety first,'' BP said in an emailed statement. ''We have made many changes so that such an event should never happen again."

Still, Joseph Gordon, climate and energy director for the nonprofit Oceana, warned Deepwater Horizon's legacy should be ''an alarm bell'' against the expansion of offshore drilling.

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Brook is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Brook on the social platform X: @jack_brook96.