Oil cleanup jobs help Gulf for now, but what comes later?

In a Saturday radio address from Grand Isle, La., President Obama promised to “stand with the people of the Gulf Coast until they are made whole.” Making the gulf coast whole, so far, is taking a lot of manpower: 17,500 National Guard troops deployed to aid in the response; 20,000 people cleaning shorelines and beaches; and more than 1,900 vessels laying boom in the gulf. The cleanup may bring a surge of temporary work, but residents of the Gulf Coast worry that the boom will be temporary at best.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) had already estimated that the state would lose 12,000 jobs due to the oil spill. President Obama’s recently announced moratorium on drilling in the gulf will likely increase that number, especially if oil rigs and support jobs leave the area. Estimates of lost oil work due to the moratorium range from 20,000 to 50,000 jobs. What jobs will be left when the cleanup workers are gone? We talk to Johnny Glover, who runs a fishing lodge that is now housing cleanup workers, and to Dean Blanchard, a seafood distributor who had to lay off 65 workers this year. “I told them: happy Mothers’ Day, but we got problems,” Glover said, describing laying off employees. “There ain’t nothing I can do for you. They all called, they all want to come back, but I can’t pay 65 people not to do nothing.”