Washington Post:
IN VENICE, LA. The oil has mostly disappeared. And in southern Louisiana, things are finally looking normal — improbably, blessedly normal — six months after the largest oil spill in U.S. history.
But on a truly normal evening, Acy Cooper Jr. would be out shrimping. Instead, one recent night, he was staying home, as he has done more often these days.
“Why? It don’t pay me to do that when they’re going to pay my claim anyway,” said Cooper, vice president of the state’s shrimpers association.
Today, it is BP’s money, not its oil, that is most visibly altering the Gulf Coast. The company has been trying — on federal orders — to protect not just the water but the way of life there. But BP’s waterfall of cash has changed people’s lives profoundly.
The oil company has already paid out $965 million and set aside $20 billion in a separate compensation fund. The money has been welcomed as a lifeline. But it has made the coast feel like an open-air economic experiment: Some hardworking fishermen think it’s in their best interest to be idle, losing market share they will need next year. And those who haven’t been paid are looking for legal and illegal ways to work the system.
Kenneth R. Feinberg, whom President Obama chose as compensation czar, says fishermen such as Cooper are wrong to believe he will pay them not to shrimp. They will be compensated for the time they couldn’t fish, but “if a shrimper has the ability to earn a livelihood, there is no longer a need for an emergency payment,” he said.
The rest here.