Frustration mounts over BP oil spill

Nine weeks after the oil spill, there is more money in the little fishing town of Bayou La Batre today than there has been for many years. Oyster man Delane Seaman watches a procession of recreational boats coming into the town dock, each owner with a promise of a day's pay of $1400, and each mate $200, all courtesy of BP. The program called Vessels of Opportunity has been a lifeline for this small town of 2,300 people, the program paying several times more than they could make fishing. But for others like Mr Seaman and his brother whose oyster processing plant has been closed since May, it has been weeks of anger and frustration.

"These folks right here shouldn't be hired on" Mr Seaman said pointing to a group of sport-fishing boats from Florida. "We heard BP was going to be hiring the people directly affected by the oil spill but we can't get hired - they're hiring all these people instead who quit their jobs to come here. We've had our application in for two months."

Bayou La Batre has become a one-employer town. BP destroyed the livelihoods of many and is now, through their cleanup programs, the only source of employment.

The company is trying to hire more commercial fisherman and plans to cut the share of recreational boats but those who are not working say this still has not happened. There is a real fear that the money will run out, BP will declare bankruptcy or end the program. There are currently 915 vessels in the Alabama program, 262 of them working from Bayou La Batre.

Mayor Stanley Wright said he had repeatedly fought with BP to hire more local fishermen and got grants of $7.5 million and $1 million from the state's BP grant to put residents to work at about half the rate BP pays. This money however has run out. "How we got out of this without a murder, it's a miracle" he said.

For Delane Seaman there is the feeling that "BP took our life away" only to replace it with a form of dependency that he and his brother went into business to avoid. "All our lives we've made decisions for ourselves" he said. "Now BP is telling us what we can and can't do. You have no mediator. BP has the final yes or no because they're holding the purse strings."

Frustration levels are at breaking point. The tragic story of charter fishing captain Allen Kruse who shot himself, is still fresh in everyone's mind.