City of Tampa Wins $27.4 Million BP Settlement for Deepwater Horizon Economic Losses

The April 2010 blowout of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico killed eleven workers and released nearly five million barrels of oil into Gulf waters over 87 days. The damage reached far beyond the coastline. Cities and counties across the Gulf region that depended on tourism, fishing, and hospitality saw revenues collapse as visitors canceled plans and conventions moved elsewhere.

Tampa sat roughly 250 miles from the spill zone, but its economy felt the ripple effects immediately. Mayor Bob Buckhorn described the losses plainly: 'There were conventions that were canceled. There were visitors who didn't come. There were hotels that were left unfilled.' To document those losses, forensic accountants hired by the city examined more than a dozen separate city revenue streams and identified a measurable drop attributable to the spill.

The city retained C. Steven Yerrid as special counsel to pursue BP for those economic damages. Yerrid had already been appointed by Governor Charlie Crist as special counsel to the state of Florida in connection with the broader Deepwater Horizon disaster, giving him deep familiarity with the federal litigation and BP's settlement posture. He prepared a complaint seeking more than $50 million, with plans to file in federal court if a negotiated resolution could not be reached.

In July 2015, Yerrid finalized a $27.4 million settlement with BP. The figure was the largest single municipal recovery from BP in the country. Commenting on the resolution, Yerrid pointed to the Exxon Valdez litigation, which dragged through courts for more than twenty years, as a cautionary benchmark: getting a defined, substantial payment in 2015 rather than an uncertain result years later served Tampa's interests better than prolonged federal proceedings.

After Yerrid's 25 percent contingency fee and approximately $200,000 in litigation costs, roughly $20 million reached city coffers. The Tampa City Council subsequently directed a portion of those funds toward reducing the city's property tax burden, with council member Harry Cohen proposing to apply $5 million of the remaining balance against a potential rate increase. The BP funds thus translated directly into fiscal relief for Tampa residents.