This Is Tiresome

Dave Helms of Press-Register covers the latest attempt by an element of the British press to make the Gulf Coast hate Britain: British newspaper article describes ‘spillionaires’ in Bayou La Batre

Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper got it wrong when it quoted Alabama state Rep. Spencer Collier describing newly rich “spillionaires” in Bayou La Batre, the lawmaker said Friday.

“I’m not that witty,” Collier said dryly, adding that he had taken heat over the story, which explored the situation in the fishing community as BP opened its checkbook for the oil cleanup.

The article, published last weekend and gaining traction via the Internet, quoted Collier as saying: “There are people here who have done very well out of the spill. We call them Spillionaires and in a short space of time they have earned more money than they would in a very long time.”

It went on to say that fishing boats were earning 2,000 pounds per day — about $3,121 — on cleanup operations, while deckhands were making 60 pounds a day, about $93.

I’m sure that someone thought the “Forrest Gump town” reference was “cute” at the Daily Mail, but it just displayed their ignorance and bigotry. They don’t know anything about Bayou La Batre, fishing for shrimp, or much of anything else, they were just trying to pick a fight.

I would like to address their argument concerning the fall of BP’s stock price and the impact on “pensioners”. If your financial advisor didn’t move you out of stocks at least five years before your retirement, you need to find someone else, because your current advisor is more interested in collecting fees than securing your income. Further, the stock dropped because the well blew up and pumped millions of gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, not because out of work shrimpers took the only job around.

Shrimping is seasonal. You make a lot of money during the season, but next to nothing the rest of the year. Bayou La Batre almost disappeared because of Katrina as the fleet was scattered with some of the larger boats pushed thousands of feet inland. Rebuilding has been slow and painful, but this year was looking really good until BP’s greed-induced short-cuts caused the well blowout.

If you know anything about the engines, specifically the cooling systems, on the large boats, you already know that the boat owners are looking at having a lot of down time to fix them after running in oil-fouled water. Personally, I wouldn’t do it, but they needed to pay bills, so they did.

Another point that needs to be made clear – BP went to Bayou La Batre and set this system up, i.e. this was BP’s idea, so if the people at the Daily Mail don’t like it, they should be hounding Tony Hayward to find out why it was done this way.