The Vessel of Opportunity Program uses private boats to monitor offshore and inshore water for any sign of oil from the BP oil gusher.The program is in place off Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Northwest Florida and constitutes the biggest fleet in the world, with three times as many boats as the US Coast Guard.
Mark Kutchenger, the head of the program in Alabama, Mississippi and Florida, said that he realizes that there have been problems with the VOO program thus far but they are being worked out.
He said when the program was started it was wide open and pretty much any boat owner from anywhere could take part.
Now, he said, BP is trying to tighten up the program by getting rid of out of state boats and requiring in-state professional mariners.
Local commercial fishermen, however, say that whatever is being done does not seem to be helping them.
They complained that there are some fishermen who have managed to stay in the program since the beginning with more than one boat and they are earning a lot of money while many other fishermen haven’t been allowed to work at all.
Dozens of commercial fishermen said they have taken every class offered by BP to get into the program and they are still waiting for a call.
Eastpoint resident Ricky Banks said some fishermen have taken so many classes they are probably overqualified for the jobs.Fishermen said the program needs to begin focusing on hiring local people on a more equitable schedule so that more people in the community can earn money.
Coast Guard Commander Joe Boudrow, said that is something the Coast Guard will remedy and he hopes to have a more equitable rotation schedule in place by this weekend.
That may not be much of a help to many local fishermen whose contracts with BP have been lost.
BP said there are 178 local boats qualifies to take part in the Vessel of Opportunity program – the seafood workers association said they believe the number should be almost double that.
Meanwhile it seems that the Vessel of Opportunity Program is actually cutting back on the number of boats it needs.
The program hires depending on how much oil is in a particular area and so far there has been no oil sighted around Franklin County.
Some fishermen said that they have worked with the program in the past and were rotated out so that others could go to work but so far no one else has been rotated in to take their place.
There were a number of other complaints made against the Vessel of Opportunity Program and against the local oil gusher response in general.
One main complaint is that there are still too many out of state workers in the program, many of whom may have expertise in locating oil and monitoring boom but have no clue about local waterways and currents.
The Coast Guard said it may look at the possibility of putting some of those workers on local boats, a plan local seafood workers have no problem with.
One oysterman said he would be happy to drive out of state workers around on his boat and he’d even let them do all the work.
The other primary complaint was that the boom was placed in the bay too soon.
A number of fishermen said that the boom is keeping them out of their fishing areas and basically the boom is getting torn up.
They are afraid that by the time oil does make it in to the Apalachicola Bay that the deployed boom will be useless and the Franklin County will find itself without enough useable boom to protect the area.
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