One Year Later, Gulf Oil Spill Continues to Impede Gulf Progress

Consequences of the disaster affect jobs, health, and economic recourse

Loss of employment
Shrimpers, bait and tackle shops, food processors and others experienced extreme loss of jobs in Alabama, according to Alabama senator Richard Shelby. Similar losses were reported by fisherman in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. Even those who were able to receive a claim are concerned about how they will continue now that the demand for work in the seafood industry has decreased. “Unemployment rates in some of these fishing communities are at 80%,” said Rocky Kistner of the Natural Resources Defense Council, according to the NAACP report.
“These fishermen are fed up,” says Byron Encalade, Louisiana Oystermen’s Association, who also appeared in the September 2010 issue of BLACK ENTERPRISE magazine . “They’re not going to see their families starve to death. And we are up to the point where you have nowhere else to go now. Your back is up against the wall here.”