Last week in a one mile stretch of beach I counted 80 “tar ball engineers” (my term) engaged in searching for the elusive oil by patrolling the beach and being paid for doing what tourists pay about $3,000 per week to do. Working in shifts for 20 minutes of each hour, the two man/woman teams spent their 40 minute breaks beneath canopies erected every 100 yards or so along the beach.
The amount of oil (if any) they discovered would not fill an aspirin bottle, much less the huge but empty trash bags they carried. I am told but cannot verify that they were paid $18-20 per hour.
Several new Kubota tractors pulled wagons loaded with bottled water, more oil seekers or porta-potties back and forth all day from canopy to canopy.
Other areas where the oil was a problem could probably have used these people productively but what I saw was a perfect example of the federal government’s “one size fits all” mentality.
I’d deeply saddened to hear that your stretch of beach isn’t doing its part to suck up oil from the gulf.