Florida Charter Boats Gird for Losses as BP Leak Ruins Fishing
By Kim Chipman and Mary Jane Credeur - Jun 9, 2010
Gary Jarvis, a charter-boat captain from Destin, Florida, says he planned to make at least $60,000 this month taking anglers out in the Gulf of Mexico to catch red snapper. Instead he’s living on $5,000 he got from BP Plc to help cover income lost to the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
“This is crushing,” said Jarvis, 58, who says he has $20,000 a month in bills and normally grosses about $350,000 a year as a charter and commercial fisherman. “I’m already calling creditors and saying, ‘Look, this may go really south.’”
Florida’s fishing industry is reeling as oil spreads through the Gulf and shuts down the waters that typically draw millions of tourists and fishing enthusiasts to the state. Recreational saltwater fishing in the state generates $8 billion in revenue a year and commercial fishing produces an additional $4 billion, according to Robert Zales II, president of the National Association of Charter Boat Operators in Orange Beach, Alabama, on the Florida border.
“We aren’t fishing anymore,” said Zales, 57, who runs a family charter-fishing business in Panama City, Florida, and has been in the industry for 45 years. “Everybody is scared as hell because no one knows what our future is.”
The BP spill hit just as fishermen were beginning to recover from devastating hurricanes, particularly Hurricane Ivan in 2004, and from the U.S. recession.
Bad Timing
“It could not be worse timing,” said Ben Fairey, 58, a charter captain from Pensacola who says his 62-foot boat “Necessity” normally produces about $300,000 in revenue from June to August. “We were hoping 2010 was going to be the bottom and we’d start to crawl our way out. In at least two weeks the only calls I’ve had are cancellations.”
BP as of last week had received about 1,000 “large loss” claims, those exceeding $5,000, from fishermen and others, and about half of those were from Florida, according to Darryl Willis, a BP vice president who is overseeing the company’s claims process throughout the Gulf coast.
While Florida fishing waters remain open for now, U.S.- controlled areas where charter boats go for their deep-sea catches have been shut down.
“It’s inevitable they will close,” Patricia Hubbard, whose family owns a deep-sea charter fishing business in Madeira Beach, near St. Petersburg, said of Florida’s ocean fishing grounds.
She said she noticed a slowing in business immediately after the spill. “We were already living on a wing and a prayer,” she said. “Now BP has clipped our wings and we are just living on prayer.”
No Rig Access
Along with the toxic danger of the gushing crude and potential harm from chemical dispersants BP is spraying to break up the oil, charter-fishing businesses are hurt by not having access to waters around Gulf oil rigs such as the Deepwater Horizon, which exploded on April 20, killing 11 people and triggering the spill. The rig was leased by London-based BP from Switzerland-based Transocean Ltd.
Fishing near big oil rigs such as the Deepwater Horizon, which attract prized fish such as dolphin, yellowfin tuna and blue marlin, normally makes up about 40 percent of the charter- fishing business for large boats, according to Fairey.
“The rigs are like a floating artificial reef,” he said.
Some charter-boat operators are turning to BP for employment. Tony Davis, 56, a fifth-generation Destin, Florida, fisherman who is captain of a 65-foot boat called “The Anastasia,” said he has been helping BP in its cleanup efforts for $200 a day since May 5. He has yet to be paid, he said.
Working for BP
BP is working to process paychecks for fishermen and other workers as quickly as possible, BP spokeswoman Lucia Bustamante said at a June 5 briefing in Escambia County in northwest Florida. Sometimes that process is slowed by incomplete bank account routing information or efforts to verify Social Security numbers and other data, she said.
As part of the agreement with BP, Davis said he’s not allowed to do charter fishing trips. He isn’t worried about missing much business, he said.
Captain Brent “Hollywood” Shaver is trying to get on BP’s list for local cleanup and observation work so he will still have income coming in later this year. In the meantime, he’s been taking fishing groups out on his 24-footer, “Captain Bligh,” while Florida-controlled waters are still open.
“It’s fixing to go away, that much is clear,” Shaver, 59, said of his Orange Beach-based charters. He charges as much as $1,000 a day depending on the group size and the trip’s duration.
“We might be wiped out for two years, or five, or ten,” he said. “This might be the last fishing I ever do in my lifetime.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Kim Chipman in Pensacola Beach, Florida at KChipman@bloomberg.net; Mary Jane Credeur in Pensacola Beach, Florida at mcredeur@bloomberg.net.
