SLIDELL, La.—Louisiana fisheries regulators are pushing a plan to lure thousands of idled commercial fishermen back onto the water by getting BP PLC to pay them a bonus on their catch.
While BP says it likes the plan, it is balking, explaining that it would rather wait until its leaking oil well in the Gulf is capped and more of Louisiana's coastal waters are reopened to fishing as to avoid overcrowding.
"The program is not dead, but it's still probably a month or half a month off," said Harlon Pearce, chairman of the Louisiana Seafood Promotion & Marketing Board, part of the state's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
The program, called Back to the Docks, proposes that BP pay Louisiana fishermen a percentage bonus in excess of the market price they get for their catch offin fish, crab, shrimp or other seafood in the state's waters.
In theory, the program would benefit several parties. It would return fishermen to what they prefer to do, allow BP to pay less than it would otherwise by fully reimbursing fishermen who aren't working and bolster the flow of Gulf seafood to U.S. restaurants. Louisiana fishermen annually catch one billion pounds of seafood worth roughly $272 million.
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