The BP cleanup claims system didn’t differentiate between fishermen who got cleanup jobs with BP and those who didn’t. The amount people received for their initial six-month emergency claims was based on the paperwork they submitted, not on their actual losses.
One man who earned $67,000 in 2009, fishing crabs and hunting a swamp rat called nutria, got $100,000 for his six-month claim. That was on top of $90,000 for working on the cleanup and $20,000 he received in initial BP claims. In the eight months after the spill, he made $210,000, more than three times his 2009 income.
But Thomas Gonzales, who said he filed $90,000 in taxable income in 2009, received only $22,000 in his six-month payment. “They’re giving the money to the young generation,” said Gonzales, who is 73. “They figure I got one foot over the hole.”
Many fishermen fretted that businesses that had been hurt by the recession, not the spill, were getting BP money: hairdressers, waiters, restaurant owners.
Felesia Carter, a manager at St. Bernard’s only off-track betting parlor, said customers were gambling away claims money. Her business was so good, she said, that employees worked overtime.
“I don’t understand how BP is just giving its money out like this,” Carter said. “Give it to the people who deserve it.”
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