(Emily Pickrell, Houston Chronicle)
Thousands of Gulf Coast residents damaged by the 2010 oil spill have to decide soon whether to participate in a class action settlement, yet most still don’t know what the deal will offer.
The Deepwater Horizon Claims Center, appointed by the federal judge overseeing spill litigation to coordinate claims under the settlement, reported Thursday that about 60,000 businesses and individuals have filed claims for medical or economic damages. Only 3,347, or about 5 percent, have gotten settlement offers since the center opened shop on June 4.
BP and a committee representing private plaintiffs agreed in early March to a settlement BP estimates will cost it $7.8 billion, although the deal places no cap on how much the British oil company will end up paying. Claimants have until Nov. 1 – the deadline recently was moved back from Oct. 1 – to opt out and pursue claims on their own. Lawyers representing some say the slow pace of settlement offers makes the decision impossible.
“How in the world can anyone decide to opt in or out when they have not heard from the claims facility what their offer is?” asked Houston-based attorney Chris Dean, who said that most of the spill claimants he represents have not received any information about their claims.
The settlement provides specific monetary amounts for different categories of damage, but amounts can vary depending on the information and assumptions included in the calculations. About 2,500 of the offers made so far have been to individual fishermen and others who operated their boats as “vessels of opportunity” to help in the response to the April 20, 2010, blowout at BP’s Macondo well about 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, according to Thursday’s report.
The disaster destroyed the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, killed 11 workers and spilled nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf. Claims administrators have said they hope to issue settlement offers or denials on 30 percent of the claims by Oct. 1.
(Read the full story at the Houston Chronicle)
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