When Ken Feinberg was fending off criticisms of his methodology, he inferred the process was open to alterations should conditions in the Gulf require it so…well, in the case of the oyster business, looks like we’ll soon find out if that was true because for them, the conditions have changed.

With the swelling of the Mississippi River, no doubt many of you are aware of the Bonnet Carre spillway being opened earlier this week, done to release pressure on the levees around New Orleans. Many are also aware the resulting flooding has the potential to destroy the oyster crops…again. The past few years…between the hurricanes, British Petroleum’s spill in the Gulf and the freshwater diversion to combat the spill, all of it has seen people in the oyster business take hit after hit. 

Less well known, as a result of the Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many in the oyster business entered into a part-government, part-private insurance program so when Hurricane Gustav hit, many were able to rebuild and survive with the help of this insurance…so, more flooding on the way due to the Mississippi River and yes, that’s unfortunate but thank God there’s that insurance, right?

Wrong.

With the water diversion to fight the oil spill wrecking the oyster beds, the government determined they couldn’t renew the insurance program because there wouldn’t be enough of a crop. So, with the opening of the Bonnet Carre and in turn the Morganza spillway…any more damage, which in some parts will be considered total…will have to be suffered without the business saving assistance of the insurance this time…

Unless of course, you count Ken Feinberg’s brand of insurance.

And any of you who read this blog regularly will probably realize as far as insurance plans go, Ken’s GCCF policies are about as good as State Farm’s – long on detail and short on payments.

When the GCCF designed their methodology, sure, they were more generous with the oyster workers than others, but with another decimation caused by the Mississippi flooding and a loss of insurance directly attributable to the effects of the oil spill…it would only stand to reason they should now be due additional compensation, as this new blow to their livelihoods will throw off Feinberg’s methodology, thus throwing off the amount he has calculated as final payments to the few people who have so far received them.

Course, it would also stand to reason that if fishermen had damage to their boats while cleaning up the oil from BP’s catastraphuk in the Vessels of Opportunity program that BP would pay to fix their boats too…yeah, but that didn’t happen either.

So once again, we come back to making things right, enough.

And once again, an industry may very well be forced to go back to Ken Feinberg, and ask him to do the morally correct thing by correcting his payment calculations to take into account the loss of this insurance as a result of his employer’s malfeasance.

And once again, Ken will say…

Uh, documentation?

Read the article:

Oysterman: BP left us vulnerable, flood could be “knockout blow”

Have a nice day.

Best wishes to everyone in the Atchafalaya River Basin…good luck.