Sal Sunseri''s P&J Oyster Company has worked Louisiana waters since 1876, making it the oldest operating oyster processor in the United States. But the future is grim, he told a recent presidential panel, due to the devastating BP spill that has been gushing oil into the Gulf of Mexico Gulf since late April.
"Due to this unnatural catastrophe in our water, P&J may forever be extinct," he said.
Sunseri, who has already laid off 11 workers, was among a group of speakers from the fishing, seafood and tourism industries sharing stories of loss with the seven-member commission investigating the worst oil spill in US history.
President Barack Obama set up the commission with an executive order in late May, a month after a rig drilling a well for BP, the Deepwater Horizon owned by Transocean Ltd, sank after an explosion.
Eleven workers were killed and the damaged well has been spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico from a mile under the surface. BP is using a containment system to capture some of the oil and hopes to finally plug the leak by mid-August.
Michael Hecht of Greater New Orleans Inc, an economic development agency, warned the panel not to underestimate the damage of a moratorium on deepwater drilling sought by the Obama administration.
"The economic impact from the oil spill itself, however broad and long-lasting, will likely be dwarfed by the impact of the moratorium," Hecht said.
A drilling freeze threatens 24,000 jobs in Louisiana alone, representing nearly $2 billion (€1.6 billion) in wages, he said.
The spill has wreaked havoc on delicate coastal ecosystems, killing birds, sea turtles and dolphins and threatening the spawning season of fish.
Containment and cleanup have taken too long, said Sunseri of P&J Oyster, expressing a common complaint in the area.
"Our livelihoods have been drastically jeopardized," he said. "I don't see a future in the oyster business as it once was."
[Source: Reuters]
