Despite BP oil spill, Louisiana still loves Big Oil

Indeed, 40 deepwater platforms operate in depths comparable to that of the Deepwater Horizon rig, producing petroleum from more than 400 wells off Louisiana, according to Mr. Smith. "Deepwater is ... the most productive area of oil production and that's where the big companies are working," he says.

This all plays into Louisiana's response to what some scientists suggest is already the biggest oil spill in American history.

To be sure, the state of Louisiana and its parishes are not doing nothing. A state Senate panel on May 18 endorsed a bill that would make it easier for the state to sue BP. And on May 17, the Terrebonne Parish district attorney filed suit against BP, seeking unspecified damages for wildlife killed or injured by the oil leak. The suit is the first filed on behalf of the state over the oil spill and is expected to be followed by similar claims from other coastal parishes.

Statewide, there are signs of growing anxiety and anger as the first heavy oil slicks to make landfall washed into Plaquemines Parish May 19. Images of oil-soaked wetlands coincided with news that the federal government was doubling the area of Gulf waters where fishing is banned due to the spill.

Many families in south Louisiana work in both the fishing and oil and gas industries, and marine scientists say the spill could severely damage the state's $1.8 billion annual fishing industry for years to come.

Fishing, drilling have coexisted

"What makes the oil spill such an interesting issue is that, historically, fishing and oil have worked well together here. This is the first time that one industry is threatening the survival of the other," says Mr. Goidel.

Yet so far, the official state response has been marked by restraint. Despite joining a multistate suit against federal health-care reform legislation, Gov. Bobby Jindal said April 30 that Louisiana was not considering a lawsuit against BP. (He has decided, however, to go forward with plans to build sand berms off the coast to try to keep oil from washing into sensitive areas, even though the US Army Corps of Engineers has not yet issued the state a permit to do so.) Prominent Democratic and Republican officeholders say they will hold BP responsible for the spill, but none has yet called for suits against BP or for new industry regulations.

"In the state's economy and politics, there's no question that the oil industry plays a central role across the board," says Goidel.

Private attorney Don Carmouche, one of the legal team handling the Terrebonne Parish suit, is something of a local Erin Brockovich. His firm has previously sued oil companies in Louisiana on behalf of the state, school boards, and other clients who own public land contaminated by oil operations. During the past century, oil companies used open pits to dispose of hazardous wastes including arsenic, lead, and radioactive material that leached into ground water. But he's careful to say that the Terrebonne suit isn't aimed at the oil industry but at BP alone.

"We don't want to be seen as attacking the oil and gas industries, but a major oil company operating in this state ignored the regulatory system, or benefited from regulators that allowed them to get by with it," he says. "In the early days, the oil companies did whatever they wanted to and got away with it, and apparently that was going on now with BP and the [US] Minerals Management Service."

IN PICTURES: Louisiana oil spill

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• Obama moves to take political control of BP Gulf oil spill
• Feds demand that BP provide confidential Gulf oil spill data
• EPA scolds BP in Gulf oil spill: dispersant is too toxic, change it

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