Dept into why the oil spill hurt the economy 2

Like southern Louisiana, Alaskan towns were full of fishermen whose way of life was threatened. Residents saw coastal waters fouled by millions of barrels of oil, and they raged against an incompetent response from government and industry. Previously close-knit communities were divided — those who took well-paying cleanup jobs with Exxon were decried as “spillionaires” profiting from the catastrophe. And the wounds did not heal with time: a recent study found that stress levels among Alaskans involved in the oil-spill litigation were as high in 2009 as they were in 1991. “There are still significant levels of depression and posttraumatic stress,” says J. Steven Picou, a sociologist at the University of South Alabama. “It was a constantly renewing disaster.”
The remaining government claims could add billions more to BP’s bill, depending on how fines under the Clean Water Act and other environmental rules are calculated. (BP has said that it has already spent more than $22 billion on the spill.)



LINK: http://articles.marketwatch.com/2010-05-10/industries/30725373_1_barataria-bay-spill-response-bp-spill


SOURCE: Walsh, Bryan. "Oil Spill: Why the BP Settlement Is Just the Beginning of the End." TIME.com. TIME. Web. 10 May 2012. http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/03/03/oil-spill-why-the-bp-settlement-is-just-the-beginning-of-the-end/.