Oil-spill commission begins work by hearing from coastal residents

[IScreamSundays]

Source: WaPo

NEW ORLEANS -- Cautious optimism about continuing progress towards capping the Deepwater Horizon well mixed Monday with grim reminders of a prolonged recovery as the presidential commission looking into the BP disaster and the future of offshore drilling in the United States began its work.

The first day of commission hearings came on Day 84 of the spill, and co-chairman Bob Graham, a former senator and governor of Florida, noted, "I wish we had the power to bring immediate solutions" but "that is beyond our ability."

Testimony about the dire future joined testimony about the dire present as a senior Coast Guard official spoke about the tar balls and mats of oil that will wash up for "weeks if not months." Oystermen and sports anglers described businesses already withering.

Wearing a tie tack in the shape of an oyster shell, Sal Sunseri told the seven-member bipartisan commission of his fifth-generation oyster processing company, which has laid off 11 of 19 workers as major beds remain off-limits. The oyster, Sunseri reminded the commission, "doesn't move much," leaving his P&J Oyster Company in New Orleans to wait out the capping and the cleanup.

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Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/12/AR2010071204897.html