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HOUMA, Louisiana : Impoverished by the massive oil spill which has closed huge swaths of the Gulf of Mexico to fishing and washed away tourists, people here are growing increasingly frustrated with the long wait for compensation from BP.
The British energy giant has vowed to "honor all legitimate claims" for compensation and has already paid 19,000 claims totaling 53 million dollars.
But most of those checks -- about 5,000 dollars for fish boat owners and 2,500 dollars for deck hands -- fall far short of the 10,000 to 20,000 dollars shrimpers haul in during a good month of trawling.
And it doesn't come close to covering what most fishermen spent on fuel, ice and repairs as they got ready for the shrimp season to open just days after the deadly April 20 explosion aboard the BP-leased Deepwater Horizon drilling rig sparked the largest oil spill in US history.
"Five thousand dollars? That's a joke," said O'Neil Sevin, an eighth generation shrimper who also runs a bait shop and seafood processing plant.
"I've got a three-thousand-dollar electricity bill," he told AFP. "It's completely crippled us."
The checks have also been slow to reach business owners or the cooks, waitresses, construction workers, electricians and others indirectly hit by the spill.
"Before this, everyone was doing fine, paying their bills," said Betty Womack, 52, whose boyfriend is struggling through the claims process after he lost his construction job in the wake of the spill.
"I have a feeling it's going to get worse before it gets better."
Local governments and charities have stepped in, offering grocery vouchers, low-interest business loans, unemployment insurance and help paying for rent and utilities.
They expect to recover some of those payments, but many here question whether BP -- which earned 16.7 billion dollars last year -- has deep enough pockets.
"There's no way BP can pay for all this," said Pete Thompson, an electrician and fisherman in the beach town of Grand Isle who had to ask for help buying groceries for the first time in his life on Thursday.
Analysts estimate that BP's total liability for the environmental catastrophe -- including the cleanup, compensation claims, government penalties, and a host of civil lawsuits -- could reach 30 to 100 billion dollars. And it could be August before the damaged wellhead off the coast of Louisiana is finally fully capped.
Adding to the economic fears is a six-month moratorium on exploratory offshore drilling, which threatens Louisiana's most lucrative industry and could cost the state over 10,000 jobs.
President Barack Obama has said the economic pain is necessary to prevent future disasters and has insisted BP will also be held liable for related costs.
But BP has quietly told local officials it has no intention of paying for a political decision, said Michel Claudet, president of Terrebone Parish.
"The oilfield much more of a ripple effect," Claudet said, explaining that fishing accounts for about 20 percent of the local economy and the oil and gas industry accounts for 60 percent.
The pain has stretched far beyond Louisiana as the oil has sullied beaches in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida and threatens to spread up the east coast.
Coastal businesses in South Carolina have added their claims to a host of class action lawsuits already filed against BP after they saw bookings fall for summer vacations.
And a report published last week by the University of Central Florida estimates that the spill could cost the tourism-dependent sunshine state 195,000 jobs and 10 billion dollars.
Meanwhile, those who have applied for help through the claims process have encountered a bureaucratic maze of ever-shifting requirements and 17-page forms.
The process is painfully reminiscent of the struggle to get help from the government after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the New Orleans Times Picayune said in an editorial Saturday.
"It is vital for BP to get its claims process moving so that Gulf Coast residents idled by the spill get the money they so desperately need to pay their bills," the Times Picayune said.
"Every claim left hanging by BP is sending ripples of distress through coastal communities. BP talks a good game, but it's the follow through that matters."
The frustration is understandable and BP is doing its best to get interim payments out while claims are reviewed, said Hugh Depland, BP's director of governmental affairs
"It's not our intention to say here's 5,000 dollars go away," Depland said in an interview on the sidelines of a community meeting in Houma, Louisiana.
"We do know we have a long way to go to get those people whole."
- AFP/vm
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