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By Kirk Maltais

This week, BP announced that the response to the oil spill has so far cost the company $1.25 billion. However, with further cleanup costs necessary to fix the damage the spill has wrought on the Gulf region, some experts estimate the costs to rise in the area of $37 billion.

BP has publicly declared that they will pay for the cleanup effort, but this does not include the massive fallout from the spill that BP is not being held accountable for. Make no mistake, the burden of debt from this disaster will be left on the American taxpayer.

The most obvious economic hit from the spill is on the fishing industry of the region. While BP’s “Vessels of Opportunity” program has contracted with 1,113 area fishermen, there are many more who were not hired by the company. Many know no other work or lifestyle, and the 40-50k they make per fishing season is gone. Unemployment in Louisiana has risen because of the spill, with 12,000 filing claims since the spill first occurred. This applies to not only the fishermen of the area, but to workers in the $8.3 billion tourism industry that has been rendered lifeless by the spill. According to the Louisiana Tourism & Cultural Department, 14,980 tourism jobs are in flux because of the spill.

That doesn’t mean all markets have been negatively affected by the spill. Some hotels/tourist spots have opened up their doors to cleanup workers, streaming income into these otherwise lifeless areas. Hotels that would normally be half-full at this time of the year are now without any vacancies. However, the biggest concern is how long this business can be sustained. Once the cleanup workers leave, there will not be any alternative source of income for these areas.

This translates into debt for every consumer when the products from the Gulf experience a rise in price due to their scarcity. Because of the regulations that will most likely be enacted after the spill is fixed, oil companies will be forced to charge extra for gas. While in the short term the price of a gallon may not rise in a noticeable way, in the long run the consumers will be paying for this regulation. On top of that, the fish that came from the Gulf will now have to be imported from elsewhere as well, increasing our reliance on foreign goods and adding to the debt.

Another less obvious but likely more damaging effect this spill has on our economy is through real estate in the area. With a damaged ecosystem and jobs drying up, the Gulf region will take an enormous hit with its real estate; No one wants to move where there are no jobs. For an area hard hit by the housing crisis and the recession, this is dire news. For the taxpayer who lives elsewhere, it’s a sharp pain in the wallet, as big government will once again be compelled to step in.