BP's Windfall to the Rich:
Rick Outzen – Thu Jun 3, 2:05 am ET
NEW YORK – As Gulf fishermen suffer, a BP program to hire cleanup boats has resulted in windfalls for rich pleasure-craft owners, a Daily Beast investigation reveals. Rick Outzen on a growing outrage.
As the black tide of BP crude oil moves toward the Florida Panhandle, thousands of fishermen are trying to salvage a way of life. BP's lifeline: Vessels of Opportunity, a program designed to hire the fallow charter and commercial fishing boats to clean up the very mess that has caused untold numbers to lose their livelihood. But a Daily Beast investigation reveals that this much-touted program is far more effective as a
PR stunt than a financial savior. Specifically, a large number of the 1,900 contracts BP has issued across the Gulf have gone to the owners of pleasure boats: doctors, lawyers, and the like, who use their vessels for Saturday fishing trips or family outings, rather than the decimated commercial fishermen.
“They have activated freaking ski boats, while my husband, who has been in the charter business for two decades, sits idle.”
"We have these weekend warriors taking away jobs from those who fish for a living," says Biloxi boat captain Tom Becker, an officer of the National Association of the Charterboat Operators, who estimates that as much as 90 percent of the BP contracts in his Mississippi harbor had gone to pleasure boats. "Every day I see the boat trailers fill the parking lot as the pleasure boats get their assignments for day while the commercial fleet sits idle. This is like stealing. These jokers are taking money away from those who are trying to feed their families."
Read the rest:
BP's Windfall to the Rich - Yahoo! News
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