No damage claims are expected to be filed for at least two more years against BP for any harm to Mississippi’s natural resources, a top state environmental engineer said Wednesday.

Richard Harrell, who coordinated the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality’s lead role in responding to the disaster, told about 100 gathered at the BB Club for a National Engineers Week luncheon that a dollar figure on damaged fisheries, shrimp and aquatic plants won’t be known until “long-term studies” wrap up by 2013 or 2014.

“We want to get through a couple of seasonal changes, a couple of breeding cycles of wildlife to see where we stand,” Harrell said.

Harrell said restoration efforts financed by BP, such as emergency sanctuaries for shorebirds, cannot be used by the company as credits toward paying out claims once the studies are complete. One habitat was unveiled in January at the Howard Miller Wildlife Management Area, in Issaquena County.

MDEQ is the lead agency in restoring natural resources after oil spills, as per federal law. A separate, court-ordered effort — the Gulf Coast Claims Facility — is handling damage claims lodged by individuals for lost income due to the spill, the largest in the nation’s history.

Mortality rates for oyster beds in state waters was 80 percent, Harrell said, effectively killing last year’s season. Reports of more stillborn dolphins and dead turtles washing up on coastal beaches could simply result from heightened awareness and will be considered in the studies, he said.

“There are more people on our beaches looking for dead turtles than there ever have been,” Harrell said.

Impact to the state’s wetlands was limited to four spots around Jackson Marsh, Bayou Heron and Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, near the coast’s far western edge.

“We don’t think it’s significant,” Harrell said, adding a group from the agency is studying the impact to the shoreline marsh. An early challenge was keeping locals from entering part of the spill zone to “chop up the marshes and get the oil out,” Harrell said.

“We had to convince them that’s not the way to do it. We had to say, ‘Let’s evaluate it, see where it is.’ Because as you know with wetlands, it’s a critically sensitive habitat. You could easily get in there and do more damage getting the oil out.”

On Wednesday, Ken Feinberg, the administrator for the Gulf Coast Claims Facility, said 465 interim claims have been paid and final settlements have been offered to 1,477 claimants.