[StBernard] Oil Spill responders to hold St. Bernard Parish Community EXPO Wednesday night in Chalmette

Westley Annis Westley at da-parish.com
Wed Jun 16 09:28:04 EDT 2010


Oil Spill responders to hold St. Bernard Parish Community EXPO Wednesday
night in Chalmette
BP announces accelerated payments of Commercial Large Loss Claims


Representatives from BP, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Wildlife and Fisheries,
the Environmental Protection Agency, NOAA and state and partner agencies
responding to the oil spill will host an Open House Expo Wednesday, June
16th at the St. Bernard Council on Aging, 8201-A W. Judge Perez Drive in
Chalmette. The Expo from 6 to 8 p.m. is open to all St. Bernard citizens.

The Open House Expo will offer St. Bernard residents the opportunity to
engage with experts about the techniques, strategies and materials being
used in oil spill response. It will feature experts, scientists and
representatives from responding agencies who will answer questions and
provide visual information on the many tools, equipment and strategies that
are being used in the response including booms, burns, sand berms, skimming
and dispersants.

Agencies will be available to address concerns about environmental quality,
wildlife, safety and resources available to residents.

BP announced today that it has approved initial payments toward 90% of
commercial large loss claims that have been filed as a result of financial
losses of the Deepwater Horizon incident and spill. Using an accelerated
process BP approved payments of 337 checks for a total amount of $16 million
to businesses that have filed claims in excess of $5,000. Initial payments
began over the weekend and will be completed this week. The remaining
outstanding commercial large loss claims are awaiting documentation and are
continuing through the process. The acceleration of commercial large claims
payments will help ease the burden on impacted businesses by providing
access to money in a short period of time.

Improvements to the commercial large claims process have been made as a
result of applying learning from the existing individual claims process, as
well as consultations with local, state, Department of Homeland Security and
U.S. Coast Guard officials.

Future process improvements include: Issuing monthly advances based on
estimates for one month's business loss. Estimated payments will be made on
a month forward (advance basis) rather than using a month "look back"
process, thus reducing delays. Following initial monthly advances, future
advances will be made for as long as legitimate financial losses relating to
the Deepwater Horizon Incident are being incurred. These estimated payments
will be adjusted for the actual losses incurred (in the previous month)
versus the estimated losses paid in that month.

A standard formula will be applied to calculate advances to ensure
consistency and to expedite the process. The formula covers ongoing
operating costs plus a 10% increase to account for volatility. Expected
revenues will be subtracted from these costs to arrive at a resultant
payment. Subsequent monthly advances will be adjusted to balance actual
losses against previous estimated advance payments.

"We hope that these changes will help those whose businesses and livelihood
have been hurt by the oil spill," said Darryl Willis, Head of BP's Claims
Team. "We are working hard to fine-tune our claims process so that it's as
simple, straightforward and effective as possible. We will keep doing
everything we can to address the impact of the spill on the Gulf region."

To date, BP has opened 25 claims offices and issued approximately 25,000
claims checks totaling $63 million. By the end of the week we expect to have
paid out $85 million inclusive of these initial large loss claims payments.

To file a claim call 1-800-440-0858 or visit www.bp.com/claims.

In St. Bernard Parish waters today, 131 commercial fishing vessels worked to
conduct boom deployment, reconnaissance and repair, trawling operations and
pollution investigation. Approximately 12,000 feet of hard containment boom
was deployed by crews in St. Bernard Parish waters.

Training is ongoing, conducted by skimming experts from Alaska, to train the
fleet on skimming operations for near shore cleanup as needed. Additionally,
there is a task force assigned to construct "snares," a device made of pom
pom boom, ropes, buoys and anchors which will be used to collect subsurface
tar balls and oil.

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