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Frustrated Fishermen in Walton County
07/16/10 - 09:24 PM
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Some fishermen in Walton County are out of work tonight and running out of patience. Some say they want jobs and BP isn’t using locals to fill open positions.

Locals say fishermen from the counties west of Walton are getting hired for the Vessels of Opportunity program and even out of state boats as far away as Virginia, but their boats are docked. And they want to know why.

A boat sits docked robbed of its nets. It’s bare and ready for use by BP, but according to its owner, it’s been waiting for work from BP for a long time.

Bruce McCullough, a boat captain recounts the timeline “…since we went through the schooling and all that, we haven’t heard a word from them. It’s been 6 or 7 weeks.”

And McCullough has nine little mouths to feed. He says BP is passing over shrimp boats like his for boats in Santa Rosa and Escambia counties. He’s even seen boats from far away, like Virginia, Texas and Louisiana “…but not Walton County or Okaloosa county. They haven’t hired no boats. They hired 2 and then they laid them off probably 3 weeks after they hired them they laid them off.”

Shrimp boats like Billy McLean’s Cheri Dawn all over Walton County are docked most of the time nowadays. Fishermen say that the shrimp coming out of Choctawhatchee Bay are ok to eat, but it’s hard convincing people of that.

And no one knows better than Bill McLean. He says the hardest part about the situation is knowing that his boat is big enough to be useful, but to see charter boats getting all the jobs “…we’ve been here settin and waiting. We’ve got our boats stripped. The Little Chat over here got no nets, no nothing. They told him…he’s waiting, Mr. McCullough is waiting…everybody’s just on the wait and see.”

We made attempts to speak with BP as to why Walton County fishermen are not being hired. They did not return our phone calls.