Oil Spill to End Family Fishing Business?

(CBS)  The impact of the BP oil spill can be felt all over the Gulf. But it's perhaps felt most by those who make their livings from the water now contaminated with gobs of thick crude.

That's the case in Grand Isle, La., where two-thirds of the residents get their income from fishing the area waters. Many have done so for generations, but none can continue because of contamination caused by the BP oil spill.

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"Early Show" Weather Anchor and Features Reporter Dave Price traveled to Grand Isle and spoke with some of the people there. Many are beyond the point of frustration.

Price said, "You ask about BP, and you see the raw emotion of a man whose livelihood is at stake."

Floyd Lasseigne, one of the Grand Isle residents, told Price, "If I saw them I would tell them to burn in hell."

Floyd and his wife, Julie Lasseigne, have been combing the gulf for shrimp, oysters and crabs for 30 years.

Floyd said the oil spill really hurts.

He said, "It kills me it absolutely kills me, this is all I did all my life, this is all I really want to do all my life."

However, their business may not be afloat much longer. Their boats are quiet, their nets are stored and their future is in doubt.

Julie said their entire lives are at stake.

"Everything we own we could lose because we don't have an income right now."

In a good year, the Lasseignes could earn upwards of $70,000 dollars a year. The reward for 14-hour days with little rest. Now with oil killing or contaminating their catch, their exhaustion comes from sleepless nights filled with worry and heartache.

Julie said, "I just worry about my daughter's future. My daughter is 14 years old. She wants to go to college to be a doctor and right now we can't afford to send her to college. Because financially we can't support her."

No one in Grand Isle, Price said, is immune from the personal pain inflicted by this oil spill -- not even the children.

Deanna-Kay Lasseigne, 14, told Price she's worried.

She said, "My future is here. I want to grow up and be a doctor and come back here and practice, but will there be a community here?"

To this town of 1,600 not being able to live off the Gulf is not just about economics, but about history culture and community. The Lasseigne family knows that well. They have been fishing these waters for a century.

But Deanna-Kay said her generation may see the end of a era.

"My brother is the fifth (generation)," she said.

Price asked if it's likely to make it another generation.

She replied, "No, not with this."

With Julie at his side, Floyd said, "We've been married 27 years this month. We went through Katrina and Katrina demolished out house. I had cancer. I fought that, I beat that. We went through (Hurricane) Gustav -- beat Gustav, and now this."

Floyd said if this oil spill drags out longer, he can do nothing.

"The boat is going to have to stay tied up to the dock. I can't do nothing with it. I can't go to work. The boat is going to have to stay tied up to the dock."

Price added on "The Early Show" that Floyd can neither read nor write and doesn't seem to have a "Plan B."

"He quite honestly paralyzed with fear," Price said, "Not only for himself, but for his daughter and for the next generation and his friends and neighbors here because this a community that simply survives on these waters for both fishing, tourism and a way of life."

"Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez observed, "What makes it worse, some say, even than katrina because the hurricane came and went, but the oil keeps coming and things seem to be getting worse by the day, is to think about how a community rebounds from something like this."

Price replied, "The question is, 'Can it rebound?' You have the effect of the toxicity of the water and what it does to the food supply. You have the fact that no one is no one will come to a place like Grand Isle, so they say, if it's polluted. And if no one comes and there is no industry here, who is going to stay? And that's a problem that's already battled and plagued this state since Katrina. So the question is: What now?"

Like many of the fishermen in Grand Isle, the Lasseignes have been compensated by BP with a check for $5,000, and while they expect to get another payment, they told Price it's not nearly what the family would have earned during what is now -- or should have been -- their busy season.

[daleaberg]

For your consideration:
1)Top kill the well, now(very low risk, high prob of success)
The LMRP, additional securing added, and 5000' of above riser pipe will provide much needed back pressure.
Sorry, collected oil going to ship will be filthy muddy.

2)Pay freelance workers $5 per net pound(or $40/gal) of oil collected
Cost: 50 days x 10,000 bpd x 42 gal/bb x 7.5lb/gal x $5 = $750,000,000
Set up oil "buyback stations" on beaches and boats.
Provide all freelance collectors needed collection media at buyback stations.
Require 1/2-mask respirators,skin and eye protection and safety training.
We need? 100,000 or 200,000 incentive-driven, safe, freelance workers collecting oil.
Current ?business model? is low-paid, by the hour/day collection workers, managed by employment agencies, hired by BP. This does not promote effectiveness of entire workforce; ?thank you? to all workers who are dedicated and productive.

Please comment, refine, pass it on.
All senators, rep's, gov's and president have ?contact? e-mail options for suggestions.
Thank you,
Dale Berg PE-WA40465

[vanmeter]

The Gulf of Mexico is about to become a dead zone because BP & Obama
are "BLIND TO PLUMES". The oil will leak from the 65 BILLION barrel well
for the next decade. NO TOURISM! NO FISHING! NO INCOME! Enjoy free oil
from BP. DRILL BABY DRILL....SPILL BABY SPILL...THINK BABY THINK!!!!

Simmons says Government Should Take Over BP Oil Clean Up: Video Reference Bloomberg News
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4whiKQgnp4w&feature=related

Matt Simmons: ?There?s another leak, much bigger, 5 to 6 miles away?,flv Dylan Ratigan show
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cDGAoU1H2gM&NR=1

[Renewable216]

President Barack Obama has said, "BP is responsible for this leak. BP will be paying the bill,."The question is which bill is the president talking about? Is it all the bills to the federal government and the residential home owners property damage bills?

The residents of the gulf need to find out how they will get paid for residential property damage!

We have got ask if this is true then should all the residents of Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts receive their residential property damages from the oil spill in 2003 and if not why? The residents of Buzzards Bay have been waiting years for compensation!

On April 27, 2003, eight years ago the Bouchard Barge B-120 hit an obstacle in Buzzards Bay, creating a 12-foot rupture in its hull and discharging an estimated 100,000 gallons of No. 6 oil. The oil is known to have affected an estimated 90 miles of shoreline, killed 450 numerous bird species, and recreational use of the bay, such as shell fishing and boating.

[superdem1]

C'mon, all you red state Republican unregulated free market voters ! You got rid of all those pesky liberal with all their environmental rules and regulations ! Where's your entrepenurial spirit NOW ? Just call it "Smoked Shrimp" - get that sassy "mesquite" flavor without hours of messy marinades ! Call it "Shrimp Flambe" when it bursts into flame on the barbie ! Everyone needs a daily adult miniumim of carbon in their diet, right ? YOUR carbon comes from the Carboniferous Period ! How about "Tea Bag Oysters" - made with real Texas Tea !

[pragmatist1]

I think BP should compensate businesses in amounts based on what they earned last year, pro-rated from now until the end of this year, since fishing seems to be a "wash". Also, businesses always need to have a Plan B, just in case of catastrophic losses to their businesses, which potentially this disaster is. Also, this man admitted to not being able to read or write. Illiteracy is something that shouldn't exist in this day and age. He's still able to learn and needs to learn to read and write if nothing else than for his own sense of pride and personal accomplishment. His illiteracy is a tragedy on top of another tragedy.

[tsigili]

The oceans were being over-fished, to begin with. Now the sea life will have its demise hastened, by this eco disaster, which will impact every corner of the planet.

Those who made their living from the sea, will simply be forced to do something else, just as anyone is, who has lost a job, in this economy.

While that is hard to do, and I can sympathize with that difficulty, there will be no other options, for people in the Gulf region. There is no other ocean area like the Gulf, anywhere else in the US.

[Shar2c1c]

itis so sad they have to endure the unknown if there is a sea to fish now since bp continues to allow the well to seep, wrong word puke its death into the gulf. I can not belive they had no plan incase this happened a little late now and bp will have to pay these people for a long long time and they should. I wish they would contine the oil so it is not spreading now threating the entire eco system i hate to watch the destruction as the oil comes ashore nobody can stop it the skimmers are not getting the deep oil that has settled what a friggin mess