How were decisions made?

SCPDC proposed criteria to the FOF Board of Directors based on SCPDC’s past experience with the State Fisheries Program.

The FOF Board approved the following criteria:

• Using Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries 2009 database, applications would be sent to all fishermen with minimum dockside value of $15,000 (which was intended on eliminating the part-time fishermen.)
• Using this value, approximately 2,500 applications were mailed in early November 2010.  The application included a survey which contained 12 questions.  Some of these questions were informational and some of them allowed SCPDC to eliminate the fishermen from consideration.
• Approximately 1,100 applications were received and posted into a new SCPDC FOF database.
• Using the survey responses, SCPDC removed respondents that stated that they “did not fish in an area affected by the oil spill” and respondents that participated in the Vessels of Opportunity program.
• The remaining applications were ranked by computer from lowest 2009 dockside value (minimum $15,000) to highest 2009 dockside value and the lowest 254 were paid $500 from donations made to the Friends of the Fishermen Fund.

Approximately 70 of the 2,500 applications were returned due to the post office not being able to deliver for a variety of reasons.  Many, but not all, were remailed as SCPDC’s staff attempted to phone and find new addresses.