BP to establish $20B Fund for Gulf spill victims

According to NPR, on June 16, the Federal Government released that British Petroleum will place $20 billion into a special fund to compensate victims of the company's Gulf of Mexico oil spill and leak, which is ongoing at this point.

This action comes two months after BP's deepwater drilling rig exploded, sending untold deposits of oil into waters off Louisiana stretching to Florida. Notably, as recent as two weeks ago, oil deposits began washing ashore along Florida beaches.

A way of life disappears along Gulf Coast

The P and J Oyster Company has called New Orleans home for the past century. It's the oldest continuously operating oyster processor in America, according to some reports. However, according to oysterman Mitch Jurisich, oil leaking from the BP spill site has contaminated oyster beds his family has leased for many years. And, where it involves working the Gulf of Mexico for oysters, Jurisich said, "It's over."

As BP scientists and engineers, along with the U.S. Government, seek to stem the oil leak, already communities are seeing their way of life disappear before their eyes, as in the case of P&J.