Last year I spent 24 days offshore on a bottom longliner fishing for deepwater grouper and tilefish. We left out of Panama City, Florida originally planned to be a 9 to 10 day trip; I should have known better. We fished off Texas in over 1000 feet of water, gradually working our way back east. On April 20, I woke up and was told by crew whom where on wheel-watch early morning that they heard radio chatter about a fire on an oil rig that we passed. They said that they could not see the fire but there was a glow coming from the horizon. One of the guys who got up to pee said he thought the sun was rising because the fire was so bright but he knew it was too early. No one knew what the fire really meant; millions of gallons of oil released, countless animals killed, families ruined, ecosystems still covered in oil and the fate yet to be determined of the Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
On a recent trip to Panama City, I had a chance to talk to some fishermen. Initially after the spill they fished as hard as possible fearful of fishery closures that eventually came. Then, there was hope that they could acquire contracts to do clean up work or be spotters for oil. BP hired numerous vessels to simply patrol the waters in the Gulf to look for oil slicks and report their findings. It was a glimmer of hope to many fishermen out of a job due to closures; temporary work til they could fish again. The unfortunate reality is that much of the spotter work was scooped up by opportunists, those who were not directly affected by the spill, and excluded many fishermen. Many of these opportunists bought boats specifically to do spotter work and used the money from BP to pay off the boats.
After the well was capped and the media turned their attention to something else, BP sidestepped their promises to see the clean up and compensation payments through. As dead dolphins and turtles washed up on beaches in the Gulf this winter, the hope is that the federal and state governments will bring BP to justice in the coming year, but that is small consolation to the people on the Gulf coast who lost their businesses and continue to struggle. Undoubtedly, in a few years time there will be collapses of many fisheries as the year class of animals that were to be spawned last spring failed and have left a gap. The spill came at the worst time, spring is the spawning time for many animals in the Gulf. Hopefully, this prediction will prove false.
On a recent trip to Panama City, I had a chance to talk to some fishermen. Initially after the spill they fished as hard as possible fearful of fishery closures that eventually came. Then, there was hope that they could acquire contracts to do clean up work or be spotters for oil. BP hired numerous vessels to simply patrol the waters in the Gulf to look for oil slicks and report their findings. It was a glimmer of hope to many fishermen out of a job due to closures; temporary work til they could fish again. The unfortunate reality is that much of the spotter work was scooped up by opportunists, those who were not directly affected by the spill, and excluded many fishermen. Many of these opportunists bought boats specifically to do spotter work and used the money from BP to pay off the boats.
After the well was capped and the media turned their attention to something else, BP sidestepped their promises to see the clean up and compensation payments through. As dead dolphins and turtles washed up on beaches in the Gulf this winter, the hope is that the federal and state governments will bring BP to justice in the coming year, but that is small consolation to the people on the Gulf coast who lost their businesses and continue to struggle. Undoubtedly, in a few years time there will be collapses of many fisheries as the year class of animals that were to be spawned last spring failed and have left a gap. The spill came at the worst time, spring is the spawning time for many animals in the Gulf. Hopefully, this prediction will prove false.
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