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New Orleans - Four years after the Deepwater Horizon spill, oil is still washing up on the long sandy beaches of Grand Isle, Louisiana and some islanders are fed up with hearing from BP that the crisis is over.
Jules Melancon, the last remaining oyster fisherman on an island dotted with colourful houses on stilts, says he has not found a single oyster alive in his leases in the area since the leak and relies on an onshore oyster nursery to make a living.
He and others in the southern US state say compensation has been paid unevenly and lawyers have taken big cuts.
The British oil major has paid out billions of dollars in compensation under a settlement experts say is unprecedented in its breadth.
Some claimants are satisfied, but others are irate that BP is now challenging aspects of the settlement. Its portrayal of the aftermath of the well blowout and explosion of its drilling rig has also caused anger.
"They got an advert on TV saying they fixed the Gulf but I've never been fixed," said Melancon, who was compensated by BP, but deems the sum inadequate.
Settlement
The oil company has spent over $26bn on cleaning up, fines and compensation for the disaster, which killed 11 people on the rig and spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days after the blast on 20 April 2010.
That is more than a third of BP's total revenues for 2013 and the company has allowed for the bill to almost double, while fighting to overturn and delay payments of claims it says have no validity, made after it relinquished control over who got paid in a settlement with plaintiff lawyers in March 2012.
The advertisement that most riled Dean Blanchard, who began what later became the biggest shrimp company in the United States in 1982, was the one first aired by BP on television in late 2011.
At that time a huge area in Louisiana was closed to fishing, according to the state's department of wildlife and fisheries.
Seven fishing areas are still closed, three where Blanchard says he would usually get his seafood.
Community
Asked about the discrepancy, BP, which made the cleanup advertisments to help the affected states bring visitors back, said there was no scientific basis for the water closures and that all studies had found that seafood was safe to consume.
Perceived injustice, between those who got payouts and those who did not, has divided the small community on Grand Isle, 80km south of New Orleans. It is within sight of a line of deep sea oil rigs and was one of the worst-affected areas.
The Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group which monitors spilt BP oil, says it is still appearing in Grand Isle. The group saw what it called "thousands of tarballs" there on 9 April and collected some of them for testing.
Biggest losers
A BP spokesperson said only very small quantities of material from the Macondo well were washing up and they did not threaten human health.
Under the settlement, claims for lost income or property damage have been easier for individuals and large businesses than small companies or start-ups without detailed accounts.
BP has maintained, both via the media and the courts, that the settlement has been too generous in some cases.
In the aftermath of the spill, oysters have been among the biggest losers.
They have fared worse than any other seafood, partly because their immobility made them unable to swim away from the oil and partly because they could not survive the fresh water diversions opened along the Mississippi to protect Louisiana's precious wetlands from oil seeping in.
Jules Melancon, the last remaining oyster fisherman on an island dotted with colourful houses on stilts, says he has not found a single oyster alive in his leases in the area since the leak and relies on an onshore oyster nursery to make a living.
He and others in the southern US state say compensation has been paid unevenly and lawyers have taken big cuts.
The British oil major has paid out billions of dollars in compensation under a settlement experts say is unprecedented in its breadth.
Some claimants are satisfied, but others are irate that BP is now challenging aspects of the settlement. Its portrayal of the aftermath of the well blowout and explosion of its drilling rig has also caused anger.
"They got an advert on TV saying they fixed the Gulf but I've never been fixed," said Melancon, who was compensated by BP, but deems the sum inadequate.
Settlement
The oil company has spent over $26bn on cleaning up, fines and compensation for the disaster, which killed 11 people on the rig and spilled millions of barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days after the blast on 20 April 2010.
That is more than a third of BP's total revenues for 2013 and the company has allowed for the bill to almost double, while fighting to overturn and delay payments of claims it says have no validity, made after it relinquished control over who got paid in a settlement with plaintiff lawyers in March 2012.
The advertisement that most riled Dean Blanchard, who began what later became the biggest shrimp company in the United States in 1982, was the one first aired by BP on television in late 2011.
At that time a huge area in Louisiana was closed to fishing, according to the state's department of wildlife and fisheries.
Seven fishing areas are still closed, three where Blanchard says he would usually get his seafood.
Community
Asked about the discrepancy, BP, which made the cleanup advertisments to help the affected states bring visitors back, said there was no scientific basis for the water closures and that all studies had found that seafood was safe to consume.
Perceived injustice, between those who got payouts and those who did not, has divided the small community on Grand Isle, 80km south of New Orleans. It is within sight of a line of deep sea oil rigs and was one of the worst-affected areas.
The Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group which monitors spilt BP oil, says it is still appearing in Grand Isle. The group saw what it called "thousands of tarballs" there on 9 April and collected some of them for testing.
Biggest losers
A BP spokesperson said only very small quantities of material from the Macondo well were washing up and they did not threaten human health.
Under the settlement, claims for lost income or property damage have been easier for individuals and large businesses than small companies or start-ups without detailed accounts.
BP has maintained, both via the media and the courts, that the settlement has been too generous in some cases.
In the aftermath of the spill, oysters have been among the biggest losers.
They have fared worse than any other seafood, partly because their immobility made them unable to swim away from the oil and partly because they could not survive the fresh water diversions opened along the Mississippi to protect Louisiana's precious wetlands from oil seeping in.
