Fishermen Fear Disruption of Their Way of Life
SEAFARERS Perry Nunez on the Miss Carol in Hopedale, La. Nearly 60,000 square miles in the Gulf of Mexico is off limits to fishermen. More Photos »
By AMY HARMON
Published: May 29, 2010
CHALMETTE, La. — Like thousands of other fishermen along Louisiana’s befouled coast, Buddy Greco’s son Aaron was itching to take his family’s boat out to the marshes as yet untainted by the oil gushing from a BP well offshore.
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Jennifer Zdon for The New York Times
Wilfred Encalade at a town-hall-style meeting on Wednesday in Plaquemines Parish. More Photos »
But the elder Mr. Greco insisted that Aaron, 19, accompany him instead last week to three days of BP training classes required for new jobs cleaning up the oil slicks.
“If we don’t get in now, we’ll be locked out,” Mr. Greco, who began fishing some 30 years ago with his own father, told his son. “And this could be the only job we have for a long time.”
Five weeks after the deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig, many fishermen here are grappling with the realization that their way of life might be disrupted for a long time to come.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration extended the closed fishing area in the Gulf of Mexico last week, and about 25 percent of federal waters, nearly 60,000 square miles, is now off limits to commercial fishermen.
The notion that the spill would not be cleaned up in a few months, or possibly years, has hit “like the death of a family member,” said Connie Townsend, the owner of a fishing boat charter service in Terrebonne Parish. And in interviews across southern Louisiana last week, the responses included anger, denial and naked grief.
“A lot of times I want to go stand in a corner and cry — not so much for me, because I’ve done it a long time, but for him,” said Mr. Greco, 43, nodding at Aaron as they stood in line at Kentucky Fried Chicken during a lunch break from their training classes on Thursday.
Biologists said that the fishermen’s fears were not unwarranted, especially as the oil advances into the marshes that served as nurseries for many species of marine life. If the populations are significantly diminished, the fisheries will remain closed. While it is still too early to determine the toll, in Alaska, experts note, fishermen are still seeing the effects of the Exxon Valdez spill 20 years later.
“We’re hoping we can find a way to clean it up faster, but it’s very realistic that they will be feeling the impact of this for multiple years,” said Julie Anderson, a fishery specialist at Louisiana State University.
Mr. Greco’s longtime fishing partner, Stacy Geraci, 55, said his dread of the changes that might be coming woke him up at night.
“You know how your life is,” Mr. Geraci said. “Well what if someone came in and said, ‘You’re not going to be like this anymore.’ How do you make that adjustment?”
Some are turning the question on BP, the multibillion-dollar corporation whose deepwater drilling accident has upended their lives.
“Are you going to take care of all the oysters I lost?” demanded Anthony Zupanovic, 30, of Belle Chasse, La., at a town-hall-style meeting with BP and Coast Guard officials in Plaquemines Parish on Wednesday evening. Because oysters cannot crawl or swim away, they are thought to be particularly vulnerable.
Yet the affirmative answer from Bob Fryar, a BP senior vice president, did little to assuage Mr. Zupanovic, whose oyster beds were among many near the Mississippi River’s western bank, where black oil recently appeared.
“It makes you want to throw up when you see it,” Mr. Zupanovic said. “Because you know it’s coming and you can’t do anything about it.”
Just how BP will assess claims for lost income is the source of much anxiety along the Louisiana coast. Will the company also account for the upfront investment in oysters, where beds are seeded nearly two years before they are harvested, in a system more like farming than fishing? What if this shrimping season was shaping up to be the best since the early 1990s, as many fishermen contend?
“That’s a shrimping moon,” said Albone Rogers, a fourth-generation shrimper, gesturing at the nearly full orb glowing orange behind the clouds after the meeting. “You could make $8,000 in six or seven hours on a night like tonight.”
BP’s recruitment of local fishermen and their boats for the cleanup efforts has spawned its own set of concerns. Some worry that they will not pass the company’s physical exam. Others complain that the company has failed to include their boats in the Orwellian-named “Vessels of Opportunity” program, even after they registered.
“You can give me all the money you want to give me, but you can’t give me that life back, because it’s a good life,” Mr. Rogers said. “It’s a very good life.”
Jennifer Zdon for The New York Times
Aaron Greco with his father, Buddy Greco, the longtime fishing partner of Mr. Geraci. More Photos »
Fishing offers a peace rarely found on shore and the pleasure of deciding each morning whether to go out. And then there is the addictive quality of hoisting huge nets full of creatures from the watery depths.
“When you pull up that drudge and it’s full of oysters, you get that rush,” Mr. Greco said during lunch last Thursday.
“You never lose the urge to want to shrimp once you’re a shrimper,” agreed Henry Martin, 66, who joined the Grecos for lunch. “When the season comes, you want to go.”
On Thursday, some fishermen were forging ahead. Luke Cibilich was preparing to drop a pile of rocks that he had bought before the spill into his oyster bed so that baby oysters might attach to them and grow. “They’re not going to do me any good sitting here,” he said.
Others were not sure what to do.
“They would make a lot of oysters,” ventured Judy Kieff, 57, referring to a similar pile she had bought.
In a region where residents tick off the disasters they have survived (Betsy, Katrina, Rita, Gustav) the way people might tick off their favorite rock bands, this one offers no obvious way to rebuild.
Michael Roberts, a fisherman from Lafitte, La., said he had to hide tears from his grandson on a recent boat ride in Barataria Bay when he saw oil staining his fishing grounds. “None of this will be the same, for decades to come,” Mr. Roberts wrote in an account he distributed by e-mail.
Mr. Roberts and his wife, Tracy Kuhns, also took video of the oil to distribute on the Internet, because they were frustrated with the lack of information from government agencies. Like many residents of the coastal areas, Ms. Kuhns worries that the dispersants being used to break up the oil will do more harm than good.
Her anger is not directed at BP but at what she considers lax oversight that contributed to the spill.
“BP is a corporation, it’s going to protect its bottom line,” Ms. Kuhns said. “But where are the government agencies who are supposed to protect the health and safety of our citizens?”
On Grand Isle, where tar balls washed ashore on the beach this month, President Obama on Friday promised to redouble the cleanup efforts.
That did not mean much to the Grecos, who having been taught how to safely extinguish chemical gases and why they needed protective clothing might take part later this week.
But meanwhile Aaron has prevailed on his father to go crabbing. While they still can.
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