Boat Captains and Deckhands No Longer Needed For Cleanup!

 It's great news that oil is no longer spilling into the Gulf, but many of the boat captains and deckhands hired now find themselves out of work and are as badly off as ever. How are BP going to compensate them now?  The article below enlarges on this problem.
   . . . June 


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Gulf Oil Spill Hits Workers Hard, Aid Groups Out Of Money
KEVIN McGILL and TOM BREEN | 08/23/10 05:40 PM

NEW ORLEANS — The oil has stopped flowing into the Gulf of Mexico, and that should be a relief. But with fewer cleanup jobs to be had, many of the people hit hardest by the huge spill are struggling as badly as ever.

Boat captains and deckhands who managed to put food on the table over the summer because they got hired by BP to skim the oil are being dropped from the payroll while huge swaths of the Gulf remain off-limits to those who haul in shrimp, oysters and other seafood

Now, just when with the environmental and engineering crisis is easing, large charities providing food to coastal communities have run out of money, homeless shelters are filling up with men thrown out of work by the spill, and demand for drug and alcohol counseling is up.

In yet another source of anxiety for fishermen and others, the federal government took over the handling of oil-spill damage claims from BP on Monday, and many people along the Gulf are waiting to see how Obama administration appointee Kenneth Feinberg administers the $20 billion victims compensation fund set up by the company.

Already, there are indications he intends to be stricter than BP in some cases when it comes to handing out checks to individuals and businesses.

Read More from the article . .