REPORTER: Ginny Stein
REPORTER: What type of oysters are they?
TERRY SHELLY, FISHERMAN: I don’t know, but the best they got though, they are Louisiana oysters, that’s all I call it.
Terry Shelly and his crew mates are a very rare breed. They are amongst the handful of Louisianafishermen still able to ply their trade.
TERRY SHELLY: See the young ones on them right now?
REPORTER: Yes.
TERRY SHELLY: You can tell they're growing, see the sharpness of the beak.
The future of these oysters and the men who earn a living from them is hanging in the balance. Right now, it's spawning time.
REPORTER: So if the oil came in this would be the worst time.
TERRY SHELLY: Yeah. If oil came in we probably lose a whole year of the spat. Next year it would show up. We would have no little ones.
Oysters are a 300 million dollar a year industry here in Louisiana, employing thousands in small family businesses.
REPORTER: If the oil comes in here what happens to your jobs?
SHANE SHELLY: We don't have none.
When the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded a month ago, killing 11 workers, it left oil gushing from ruptured pipelines deep below the surface. Ever since, a desperate race has been waged across the Gulf of Mexico, BP and Government agencies have been trying to stop the oil polluting one of the most fertile fishing grounds in the world. But it's a nigh on impossible task.
JON HENDERSON, GULF RESTORATION NETWORK: So right here what you're seeing is the futile attempts to protect these - this estuary from the impending oil.
Jon Henderson is from a local environmental watch dog. He says the response hasn't been nearly big enough.
REPORTER: Why is it futile?
JON HENDERSON: Because the booms are only designed to mitigate against a two foot tide. The first day that we went out on a boat, the seas were five to seven feet. I feel like there's been a history in oil disasters of them really trying to make things seem a lot better than they really are - officials trying to make things seem a lot better than they really are.
With rough weather hampering the containment effort, oil soon began washing up on the barrier islands off Louisiana. Commercial fishing had to be suspended. Up and down the coast, shrimp fishermen had been spending big in preparation for the season.
JEROME JONES, SHRIMP FISHERMAN: It has cost me. You know, the rigging probably looking at 20,000 dollars worth of rigging.
Jerome Jones is a fourth generation shrimp fisherman. He says the spill will be devastating for an industry that was already struggling.
JEROME JONES: A lot of fishermen probably won’t be in the business after this because they have nothing to look forward to. You see, they have been bombarded with Hurricane Katrina, Rita, Gustav, Ike. Last year we came right back and we had to strike because low prices on shrimp that we couldn’t afford to go out because of high diesel prices and low prices for our catch. Now we hit with the oil spill and nobody come forward with a contingency plan, and said ‘hey guys, your livelihoods going to go on, one way or the other’.
With the fisheries closed there's nothing for these men to do but support each other. Anton Marinkovic is another fisherman who migrated here from Croatia when he was 19. These water ways were where he began his new life. But after years of hard work and hard luck, he's now at the end of his tether.
ANTON MARINKOVIC, OYSTER FISHERMAN: Nothing has been like this ever. You know, it is so sad, you know, and more day passes it just getting worse and worse and create so much anxiety and fear and stress I just can't cope with that still.
Hurricane Katrina and its many predecessors have forced Anton to restart from scratch five times. Today he's decided to move on, giving up any hope of fishing in Louisiana waters.
ANTON MARINKOVIC: It just drives everybody crazy especially me, you know, and I'm just, you know, taking medication for this stress, you know, because I just can't take it. It hurt so much just to think how you're going to make a livelihood, I mean, to support the family and, you know, it's just so hard - Very hard.
With the fisheries closing fast, many have offered their boats to BP for the clean up effort. But for the mast majority, they are still waiting to find out if they are needed.
JEROME JONES: We talking about probably in the number of a thousand boats you know in this parish of Plaquemine. They won't all be used on this job so what do they do? How do they pay theirs that's what people are really concerned about. Do they really care about us? You know, in any situation like this you start the blame game, and frustration mount more and get more intense as time goes by. Nothing's really done and these people j just sitting here docked up when they normally would be out there living making a living.
MARTI POWERS, BP SPOKESWOMAN: We know there's going to be an impact to local fishermen for their career is because this is the start of a fishing season for them.
Marti Powers is a spokeswoman for BP.
MARTI POWERS: We do hope to report to you very soon that we have been able to be very active and stop this in the water.
She's in the fishing town of Venice trying to talk up the oil company's response in the midst of this highly damaging crisis.
MARTI POWERS: It's definitely not a great push for your reputation especially for a company like ours who has definitely had a green agenda. But I think with the amount of response that we have ramped up I think that we show that we are a responsible partner, a responsible company.
That's a claim BP's critics find hard to swallow.
JON HENDERSON: They've been fined for lots of other safety violations. They're even on probation in Alaskabecause they were charged criminally for safety violations. So, no, they can't be trusted.
Since the spill began, the US Government has been in high level negotiations with BP over its liability. So far CEO Tony Hayward has agreed to foot the clean up costs and compensation claims along with possible punitive damages awards, the final could easily top 10 billion dollars.
REPORTER: How much has BP budgeted for in?
MARTI POWERS: We have not budgeted for this but again the costs right now is not the focus. The focus has really been response.
That response has hit numerous hurdles. Initial plans to cap the leak with this 100 tonne steel dome failed, leaving the oil gushing into the sea and the environmental costs mounting. An increasingly angry American public is demanding answers.
SENATOR: Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you're about to give to the senate committee on energy and natural resources shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
This week executives from BP and two of its contractors were summoned to a senate hearing inWashington. The blame game began immediately.
TIM PROBERT, PRESIDENT, CHIEF HEALTH, SAFETY AND ENVIRONMENT OFFICER, HALLIBURTON: At the outset I need to emphasise that Halliburton is a service provider and the well owner is contractually bound to comply with the well owners instructions.
LAMAR MCKAY, CHAIRMAN OF BP AMERICA: Why did Transocean's blowout preventer, the key fail safe mechanism, fail to shut in the well and release the rig?
With those involved all looking to shift responsibility, one question was firmly in the spot light.
SEN. MARY LANDRIEU, (D-LOUISIANA): Will BP pay?
LAMAR MCKAY: Tony Hayward our CEO has been very clear and we are going to pay all legitimate claims- all legitimate claims.
SEN. MARY LANDRIEU: And define legitimate please for us.
LAMAR MCKAY: Substantiated claims.
STEPHEN ROADY, ATTORNEY EARTH JUSTICE: I would expect that we'll have a fair amount of litigation over this case. That's indeed the case. We already have a couple of dozen of these personal injury cases filed in the eastern district of Louise. We expect a bunch of natural resource damage claims to be filed and we don't know yet what the states are going to do by way of filing as well.
Stephen Roady is a Washington based litigation lawyer with earth justice - a leading ecological law firm. He's been alarmed by how cozy the oil industry and its regulators have been, even granting BP a waiver on assessing the environmental impact of its Deepwater Horizon rig.
STEPHEN ROADY: I think a lot of us were surprised to learn this, this just surfaced after the accident. They received some sort of a categorical exclusion from environmental analysis and it's obviously our view and hindsight is 20-20 this was a very imprudent thing for the Government to have been doing.
Those cozy relationships are now under scrutiny. And pr-drilling politicians are worried for the future of the offshore oil industry.
LISA MURKOWSKI, REPUBLICAN SENATOR: And if we can't continue to operate and convince people that we can perform safely, then not only will BP not be out there, but the Transoceans won't be there to drill the rigs and the Halliburtons won't be there to provide for the cementing.
STEPHEN ROADY: It seems to me there clearly has been a tremor in the force here as a result of this accident. We have the prospect now even of senators as you say who have been friendly toward the idea of intercontinental shelf drilling be concerned about the inability to prevent blowouts and prevent pollution.
Back in Louisiana, the containment effort goes on. Today the governor of Louisiana Bobby Jindal is overseeing the deployment of yet another specialist barge for the clean up.
BOBBY JINDAL, LOUISIANA GOVERNOR: The strategy needs to be adaptable as the oil gets close and they need to be able to move those resources and so the great news by having these barging out there the jack up barge ace lows them 24-7 to deploy the secondary line of defence. Make no mistake about this, leaking oil has the potential to absolutely jeopardise Louisiana's way of life. It's not just about stopping the leak and cleaning up the oil but it's about restoring the fisheries and barrier islands, it's about restoring our way to earn a living down here.
As the oil slick continues to grow, so, too, does the environmental damage. And more fisheries will have to close. The handful of Louisiana fishermen who still have a livelihood know their future is literally blowing in the wind.
CHARLES BUSHEY, COAST GUARD MASTER: Forecast models bring the oil to the west. If that were to happen it would wrap around the Mississippi river Delta and threaten those inland water ways where the oyster beds are and where the oyster fishermen pull those oysters from.
TERRY SHELLY: Right now I'm lucky - Very lucky right now.
REPORTER: It wouldn't take much to change.
TERRY SHELLY: No just a couple of wind - the wind in the wrong direction for few days and everything will change again.
Reporter/Camera
GINNY STEIN
Producer
AARON THOMAS
Researcher
DONALD CAMERON
Editors
AARON LEWIS
WILL CAMPBELL
Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN
16th May 2010