Its inside story. [ music ] music ] welcome to inside story, im ray suarez. Crude oil is nasty stuff, hard to handle hard to move from place to place without making a mess. Full of chemicals that can make you sick. When hundreds of millions of gallons of crude came bursting out of a hole punched in the ocean floor in a massive uncontrolled release, it can cause a lot of damage to coastal communities, wildlife and livelihoods, and to families that said goodbye to someone that never came home from work alive, the loss is incalculableful bp and partners were sued. Billions in fines and legal damages were levied. And five years since the well blowout we asked did the money get spent properly. Is the gulf of mexico recovering. Did anything change lowering the risk of a blowout happening again. Well start the programme with al jazeeras Jonathan Martin reporting from louisiana. Reporter shore lines stained in oil are no longer common in gulf coast communities much the tarlike odour passed. What linger said five years after the Worst Oil Spill are decisions and debate about bps financial liability. How much should the company pay for polluting the water and other damage to the environment. B. P. Needs to stop wining and come clean. The companies have done its best to repair the damage. It hasnt run away from its responsibilities. Reporter since 2010 bp spent more than 10 million on cleanup. Removing sludge. Regular cleaning ended last year. The company paid 13 billion in claims and settlements. For the thousands of businesses and people like fishermen who suffered losses. Since a judge found bp was grossly negligent for the spill it faces up to 14 billion in civil fines through the federal clean water act, a setback that the oil giant says it cant afford. I think its ridiculous that the lawyers argue they cant afterward the fines. Bp revealed b. P. Xp is limited in its ability to pay a fine more than 2. 3 billion. Bp said a larger fine would drain the subsidiary of cash and threaten provisions in the gulf. The Gulf Restoration Network says bp continues to dodge responsibility and should pay the maximum melty. Its a huge Multinational Corporation and argues maybe the american subsidiary dont have the resources, but the Huge Corporation can come up with the money. There comes a point you have to say okay we have to be fair. With bps Global Company reporting 30 billion in operating cash last year oil analysts says 14 billion could be devastating. We have oil prices half what they used to be. We have a structural change in the industry in terms of how we used to find oil, how we operate. On top of it we have a situation where bp has divested of 38 billion worth of assets. It is a smaller company. Reporter a judge can rule on the penalty this month. Regardless what happens. The burden is far from over. Under a separate law researchers are determining the overall damage. Bp voluntarily committed 1 million. When the governments safety is complete experts predict the fines could be between 5 million 20 million joining me Jonathan Martin al jazeera correspondent. Why, after all this time is the government trying to quantify the extipt of the environmental damage extent of the environmental damage caused by the smile . We talked to a trusty involved in the process, and he said we knew this would take 510 years. 200 studies have been conducted. They are looking at the Barrier Island wild lie affected. And it is subjective. They cant go and look at every mile of the gulf. Theres thousands of miles. They can take the reach and put together a complete story of what happened to the gulf as a result of the spill. Theyll present a claim to bp, but the question remains how much did the oil spill damage the environment. We know the coastal marsh lands, the wetlands were already eroding in this area. The trustee admitted the big question is how do you determine how much bp is to blame. Thats a process that could take a couple of years, we under. Early on the company tried to get ahead of some of this pledging large amounts of money in advance, paying huge payouts to coastal communities for temporary labour to make businesses whole for the tourist season. Does it count against what may be judged down the road by a court in these things that have to play out . Well not exactly. They are separate i guess you could say, pots of money bp paid out some 60,000 claims and thats 5 billion. The fines they face are civil penalties, that is dealing with the clean water act. That deals with the more than 3 Million Barrels of oil that polluted the golf. Bp could face up to 13. 7 billion. You have a separate set of money, and that is the Natural Resources money. How did the oil damage the Natural Resources. You have several different scenarios, and bp paid out there 28 billion, but could face that much more with the other fines. Are we talking about years of courtroom battle still remaining . You know that is what is expected. One of the trustees that we spoke to said whatever claim we come up with bp will appeal. If you look at the history, they have appealed decisions, and downplay the damage of what they say happened to the gulf. So it could be another 23 years before we see a resolution in terms of how much bp is ordered to pay. Thank you for joining us Jonathan Martin with us now is dean blanchard. He owns a dock servicing local fishermen. He is the fourth generation of his family to depend on the waters. He said business was booming before the spill. He has 140 employees then now he has 14. Businesses that rely on nature have runs of good years and bad years. How do you know that the setbacks in your business now are directly attributable to the deep water horizon . Ive been doing this over 40 years. Im 56 years old. I worked on my grandfathers place. We had good years and bad years. Bad years we drop maybe to 80 of the good years. Now we are at 15 . We never dropped that low. Bp is crying. They claimed they had 50 . I would be happy to be at 50 now. You heard our reporter talking about a large pay out to individuals, state governments did you get a share of that money. I did. Its a lie. I lived on the most affected area. We had 90 of the oil. I dont know nobody that got a big pay out where i lived at. When the money was handed out for shore restoration, to make people good for missed seasons of fishing. The people didnt get anything. No we didnt get nothing. Bp gave money to the politicians, the lawyers made money. The regular people didnt get nothing. We were the most affected area. The lawyers put us as zone b which means we are not able to collect for property damage. We are the only ones in the state of louisiana. This is a circus. Bp didnt give the money to the regular people believe what i tell you. We were doing services in the fishing industry. For those that couldnt bring in a catch or make a living. Where d they go. Did they leave altogether. No theyve borrowed money from me. We go to label day, if they dont change well shut down, i cant go in my office i have 1012 people a day borrowing money. I cant pay all of the bills, this is a joke. Thank you for joining us. Remember the well cam. It was a fixed video camera pointed at the blown out macondo well. You can look at it night and day and watch the under ending eruption of crude oil into the gulf of mexico. Where is all of that oil today . Most is it in the water. Michael oku is back from the coast. He went out with fishing families struggling to stay in business. Stay with us its inside story. Living off the water. What would we do . Reporter yes. I dont know. Reporter you never considered that . No. Welcome back to inside story. Today is the fifth anniversary of the bp blowout. We are looking at the deep Water Horizon Oil rig disaster killing 11 and spilling millions into the gulf of mexico. Michael oku has been reporting on what happened in the gulf in the years after the spill. Here is an excerpt from his report. Reporter what kind of fish are you catching in the waters . Puppy drones, drones red fish garfish. Flounder. All kinds. Reporter teresa and donald are members of an indian tribe, a native American Community tucked deep in the wetlands of southern louisiana. For more than 30 years the waters put food on the table and money in the bank account. Reporter what would you guys do if you were not living off the water . What would we do . Yes. Lord i dont know. You never considered that . No. Now the dadas are forced to confront the possibility their sea faring way of life could end. Five years after the bp oil spill, they say the fish to dwindled some of the neighbours turned to Church Charity in order to survive. They are fisher many, and they couldnt fish. Before bp louisiana was losing 24 square miles of marsh land a year. An area about the size of manhattan. Since bp the dadas say the process sped up. We approached one of donalds favourite fishing spots. During the spill this area was covered in oil. Oil was about 15 feet on the bank here. 15 feet on the bank. Yes, at least 15. Killing the grass, and 15 feed that went away. Since the spill, they have been catching deformed fish. This is a picture of one. Swollen red and missing scales. Bp recently released a report timed to the fifth anniversary of the spill. It says there hasnt been any significant longterm impact on marine life in the golf adding that the location of the spill in deep water, and the massive response that follow midgated the damn. Five years after the spill fishermen along the golf coast fell on hard times. Oyster men have been hit hard. According to seafood process, the oyster harvest in the gulf of mexico plummeted since 2010. Disappearing habitat is a reason why. Fishermen blamed the oil, and decisions made by the federal government during the crisis. A study published in the environmental journal Environmental Solutions says the dispersents may be oil toxic by a factor of more than 60. Michael oku joins us now. They got some of the oil out of the gulf with booms, skimmers and suction. Where is the rest of it, do we know . Yes you know for a long time that was the billion dollar question. I mean, after they finally plugged that spill, everyone was frantically searching to find out where is the rest of this stuff. Well researchers the two university the university of santa barba and Florida University say they found it where they would like it not to be at the bottom of the ocean mixed in with sediment. They say we are talking about 10 million gallons of oil. This is a significant amount of oil drifting in the gulf at this point. When oil settles on the sea floor, does it kill everything that it lands on . Well you know, there are a lot of folks that tell you, including bp officials, that it degrades and doesnt have a long term effect. The question is what effect does it have when you talk about that amount of oil. Its about cause and effect. A lot of people in the gulf that i talk to said its clear when you see the sea mammals on shore, dead the amount of dolphins that we see, theres a cause and effect between the spill and the sighting of the dolphins. That is in debate. What we dont know is what is this oil going to do. Researchers say the deep concern, deeper than the fact that you find sea mammals dead in the ocean is the possibility that its going to contaminate the food change. Little organisms ate things at the bottom of the seabed. They are eaten by small fish the small fish eaten by larger fish and we talk about fish that people like you and i may eat. The gulf of mexico is an important american fishery. Tops of food comes out of it. Does that explain some of the reluctance you found on the part of fisher folk to talk about the deformed life you are seeing . Theres no question about it. When you talk to fishermen on the gulf. They will point to the fact that they have fished these waters for years. In some cases generations of families fished for hundreds of years, and they would say we are not seeing the fash stocks. When you push harder theyll tell you that they are seeing unusual traits. Some fish are swollen. They are missing their tails. They dont tell you that it is happening with a lot of fishermen. What they are doing is protecting their livelihood. They dont want it out there that theres a lot of fish that may be wrong. Michael oku thank you for joining me. With me is Hannah Mckinnon a senior campaigner for oil change international, an Environmental Group looking to speed up the transition away from fossil fuels. Have we learnt lessons that are applied in the you gulf of mexico from a blowout and a spill that took three months to control . Absolutely. Im concerned we are not, to be honest. If you look at the story, the grux of the problem is why where re there in the first place, we have a policy that commits us to limit Global Warming to two degrees. We need to stop exploring and exploiting fossil fuels. These are researches that we are staping into. Theres a question of why are we there to start with. The bottom line is we are doing that. The jill industry is a clear answer they are looking at a hazon down the road where oil will be its a big part of the energy mix of this country and the world and new places in the world, using more oil than ever dont we need that at the bottom of the golf. The International Energy agency kels us twothirds of the reserve have to stand their ground. Anything they havent tapped into is off limits. Thats the category that they fall into. The depep see drilling. They are unburnable carbon. It was after the deep water horizon accident that we found out that bp didnt know what to do if there was a failure in water that deep. Have we reengineered that question . Are new drills going underneath into just as deep water, where there are now fail safes in order. Where we can now say that cant happen again . Theres no way we can have a spill proof deep sea drill or oil projects. Things spill. We look for example, at the proposal. The governments analysis spiments a 75 major spillover the course of the projects life line. If it detects the possibilities we are dealing with, are we prepared to risk it all for oil we cant afford to burn . A lot of americans would say yes, because they need to gas up their cars heat their homes. Oil is a big part of our daily lives. Now we arent ready to do without it. Im not sure i agree. I think that we do have the technology and the know how to start a transition that is more ambition than the one we do now. The major hurdle is political will. We are seeing Companies Like bp shell, trying to sell us a story that we cant live without the product. If i told you a decade ago we could live without the landline you would have laughed in my face. No one would have imagined wed have powerful pocket computers. Thats where we are with energy. We are on the brink of revolution if we have the political drive to do it well change the face of energy and speed up the transition away from high risk high carbon fossil fuels that are devastating lives and livelihoods. Thank you for being with me. Thank you for having me. Still ahead, the gulf environment provides a livelihood and way of life. Nature has suffered from florida to texas. In some areas what was once bountiful was barren. If you saw what it looked like a few years ago, its sad, its sad to look at the graveyard of what it once was. Welcome back to inside story. A huge quantity of crude oil released over three months is not a natural feature of the gulf of mexicos eco system. It smothers poisons, kills wildlife shellfish, water birds, plants fish marine mammals. They all suffered, even in the face of heroic efforts to clear the oil and save the wildlife. Look at the video postcard from the National Wildlife federation. We know from other spills the exxon maldives spills all over the place that recovery takes decades, and some things may never recover. The idea that in five years bp can declare the gulf back to normal is ridiculous on its face. This area of the gulf which got the bulk of the oil has seen a continued above normal rate of dolphin deaths that has going on since the spill. In addition the studies captured dolphins checking their health and what they found is shocking. Sick dolphins, some of them dying at higher rates come paired to parts of the gulf not affected. We cant bring back the dead dolphins pelicans and turtles. They are gone. What we can do is improve the habitat and the eco system to they can recover. Kat island is a symbol. There are some of the largest nesting colonies of wading birds in north america on the louisiana coast. The oil came in. Many of which got rescued and attempted rehab on them. It eventually killed the manning rove. It smothered the plants. As they died. As you can see, the island disappeared. If you saw what it looked like a few years ago. Its sad to look at the graveyard of what it once was. Al Jazeera America ask bp for an oncamera guest to address the issues in the show. The company declined but provided a written statement from jeff morrell, the Senior Vice President for u. S. Communications and external affairs. The Statement Read in part line line when asked about whether sickness in dolphins could be caused by exposure to moisture, he said thanks for joining us. For this edition of inside story. Get in touch with us on Facebook Follow us on twitter. For this edition, im ray suarez. More migrants rescued at sea as the e. U. Vows to ease the escalating crisis in the mediterranean. Hello, welcome to al jazeera, live from doha. Coming up in the next half our an explosion rocks yemens capital as a weapons depot is targeted tensions on the streets of guineas capital. Antigovernment protesters are angry over election