Frustration on the bayou: Not all fishers will get work with BP to fight Gulf oil spill

By Chris Kirkham, The Times-Picayune

May 05, 2010, 7:25PM

Yancy Matherne was shrimping in the marshes outside Buras over the weekend when he got the call that many commercial fishers across Louisiana have been awaiting.

It was a BP representative, telling him he should get his boat approved in order to go to work deploying booms to shield marshes against the oncoming oil. He came back early and has since spent $600 getting his skiff up to code, purchasing new life jackets, new fire extinguishers and rigging up a navigation light.

But he's still awaiting a call from BP to go to work - like hundreds of other sidelined shrimpers, crabbers and oystermen across south Louisiana.

"I was still making money when they first called me," said Matherne, originally from Buras but blown to Slidell after Hurricane Katrina. "Right now I'm coming to get the last little money I've got stashed, fill my boat with fuel and bring it down to Venice."

Out of hundreds of Plaquemines Parish boats on the waiting list in BP's "Vessel Opportunity Program," a program designed to put fishers to work fighting oil, only 15 have been put to work so far, with another 50 getting paid on standby. Plaquemines has one of the largest concentrations of fishing boats on the Gulf Coast, so naturally the interest has been great.

Though the program aims to tap into fishers' extensive local knowledge of the marshes, it is already creating a have-and-have-not scenario in boat harbors throughout the coast. With fishing largely shut down east of the river and shrimping now closed everywhere, employment with BP is the only option on the table for many.

But depending on how long the crisis lasts, only a few fishers may be able to partake in the temporary gigs.

Dave Kinnaird, the community support coordinator for BP in Plaquemines Parish, said fishers' experience is important because "Whereas it might take a contractor six hours to find the right spot, the fisherman could do it in two hours."

But he acknowledged there's no way that every boat that wants to work will be able to.

"It'd be impossible to have the entire fishing fleet at sea deploying boom," Kinnaird said.

In Plaquemines, names are not drawn randomly out of a hat. Rather, boats are chosen based on their size and type, such as steel or fiberglass hull. Kinnaird said the company is trying to be as equitable as possible in hiring from the wide array of ethnic communities in the parish, from Vietnamese to Cambodian to Croatian to the standard American fisherman.

The number of boats going to work has created frustration across coastal southeast Louisiana. In Jefferson Parish, Parish Councilman Chris Roberts, Lafitte Mayor Tim Kerner and Grand Isle Mayor David Camardelle issued a joint statement Wednesday criticizing the plan to hire fishers, calling it a "smoke screen" to keep fishers temporarily happy.

"Saying that you are training fishermen and readying them for the spill gives the impression BP is concerned about their well-being," the statement said. "What they are not saying is that BP is hiring less than 10 percent of the fishermen being trained in direct impact areas. The other 90 percent are virtually unemployed and have obligations that cannot be met."

Waylon Buras, a Venice shrimper, was among the frustrated and out-of-work until he got the call from BP Wednesday afternoon telling him he was due to be hired.

"It's hard as a fisherman to be patient, because all our bills are due," Buras said. "This time of year all of us would be making money, and now everyone's on standby."

Buras has been coordinating the vessel program with BP off-and-on over the past few days, and said he believes the company is doing its best amid non-stop phone calls.

"The best I can say, from my standpoint, is it's a very large operation and its just taking time to get coordinated," he said.

Buras said fishers can also call a BP hotline at 1.800.440.0858 to receive compensation for lost wages.

 

Chris Kirkham can be reached at ckirkham@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3321.