The oil spill is causing serious financial damage to coastal states and people who depend on the waters for their livelihood. Commercial fisherman,  shrimping boat operators, oyster farmers, charter boat operators, tourism operators and others with beach front property are all effected. BP (British Petroleum) is going to be help responsible for all the damage caused by the oil spill, and that financial figure is going to be in the billions. They are already spending millions a day trying to control the spill but the other costs will come from paying for repairing the natural resources they have damaged as well as the lawsuits filed against them for this oil spill.  The true total costs of this will not be known for years as in the case of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, but it looks like it’s going to be astronomical figures.

So far there have been at least 36 oil spill lawsuits filed against BP and Transocean Ltd. There will eventually be hundreds (if not thousands) more filed against these parties, no doubt. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is on track to be one of the most horrific environmental catastrophes in history. So the legal ramifications of this disaster will be enormous.