Oil spill forces fisherman to sell boat, take different route

SPRING HILL - Ken Haney didn't want to give up fishing, but on Friday, he will put his boat up for sale.

"I don't know what the seafood is going to be like next year," Haney said. "I don't know if it's going to be safe, don't know how long they're going to be buying our seafood."

According to Haney, the oil spill in the Gulf has so tarnished the reputation of seafood, it has become almost impossible to sell what he catches.

Haney's wife, Jenn, held stacks of documents she said she filed with BP, but financial help has not been forthcoming.

"They wanted more paper work, we gave them what they wanted," she said. "The taxes, our trip tickets showing what we caught, when we caught it for the last few years and they're still denying us."

A BP spokesman told Fox 13 he cannot comment on specific cases. He did, however, say the company has paid more than 4,000 claims to people in Florida's fishing industry.

Haney isn't waiting for his claim. He isn't waiting for the fishing industry to rebound. Instead, he headed far inland to Dade City's Morningstar Fishermen.

"We train people and teach them how to raise fish and vegetables to be self sustaining," Executive Director Barbara Arthur explained.

Thousands of fish are raised at the sprawling complex, then sold to restaurants and grocery stores.

"It's a closed loop system," Arthur said. "Once you have the water, the waste from the fish fertilizes the plants, the plants take the nutrients they need and clean the water and it goes back to feed the fish."

Since the oil spill, the phones at Morningstar have been ringing a lot.

"Many fishermen have contacted us and we have actually had some veterans [who] are interested in Aquaponics because of the overfishing of the Gulf and now because of the oil spill," Arthur said.

As for Haney, he has a small fish farm, designed at Morningstar, up and running in his backyard. He hopes the yield will replace the income he's lost on the water.

"You're not just selling fish," explained Haney. "You're also selling vegetables and herbs so you've got both incomes coming in."