pieces of dispersed oil on it. in addition to that, we had a crew of fishermen and local boat captains with us. they said they were most concerned about the fact the lack of bait fish in the water, also about the lack of tuna they were seeing, and i m an avid diver and i think what got me the most about this dive is normally when you re on a hot boat all day the first thing you want to do is jump into the water, it s refreshing, and in this case after looking at foamy pieces of dispersed oil, foamy like pad pattys of it on top of the water you had a disgusting feeling when you were getting into the gulf of mexico and it was pretty upsetting for most of us, especially philippe coust u cousteau. what is philippe going to do with this information after making this dive with you? reporter: i think he wants to philippe is really big on telling stories with pictures and really spreading the word to the public about what he believes is going on in the gulf of mexico.
venice, louisiana. reporter: you can hear the sound we haven t heard in a couple of days from the air boats. there complaints from mainly charter boat captain who is say there carpet baggers coming in and signing up for vessels of opportunity program. people who are coming from elsewhere in louisiana who may be coming out of here taking the only jobs now available to them and that is to get hired by bp to be part of the clean up effort. bp said they are doing their best to make sure that the boat captains are from the area because they want the local knowledge for one thing and two, they want to employ the people who have been put out of work bite oil spill. it is a complaint you hear frequently. as far as the clean up goes, it has been solved for the last few days because of the former
been working very closely with fema, secretary napolitano and our d.o.d. counterparts. there are a lot of vessels out at sea, some of them official vessels. many are these vessels of opportunity, vessels owned by shrimpers and others allowing them to have some work. but there are a lot more people out of work who would like to be employed by bp and can t seem to get that done. gary tuchman is in the new orleans. he s been in the gulf coast following the story. reporter: in louisiana, there are more than 600 boat captains. but there s another 1,600 on the waiting list. many of them making no money whatsoever. the big problem we re finding is these people are telling us that
we re look ideas. we know, even in a kris six this is a normal thing. we re all in a crisis, headed for a crisis, that s part of being with us on this planet. and in this area, we understand that we re not like in money or time or leadership, we re lacking in idea. we re having ideas. some of boat captains are out of work and they re taking environmental tours. but we ve got a lot of good things going on down here. the sand, the beach is still pretty. the golf courses are open, the shops, and the restaurants, it s okay. not a bad life, all in all, is it, andy? it s not. and we we want people to understand, we preaappreciate s much your anguish for us. this is where i live. my friends and family members around here are looking at their lives just like you do wherever you live in that their money, they re stretching it to meet the end of the month.
of what s acceptable. did you consider this compensation fund for people who lost their lives, lost their businesses, lost their environment, lost their ability to earn a living, did you consider that to be a slush fund? as when said yesterday, it is our commitment to do right to insure that individuals, fishermen, boat captains, small hotel owners, everyone who has been i am pacted by this is kept whole. that is what i have said from the very beginning of this, and that is what we intend to do. and as i said in my testimony, i hope people will now see that we are good for our word. can we take that as a no in response to my question, sir, that you did not consider this to be a slush fund? i certainly didn t think it was a slush fund. thank you. i ll yield back.