Crude Souvenir: $1,000 Bottles of Blowout BP Crime Oil

From Nola.com - AP --  the pull quote:

"I have a bottle of the enemy on my desk every day" . . .

It was a joke, at first, says Kevin Voisin.

At the southeastern Louisiana oyster company his family owns in Houma workers were having what he calls an intergenerational brainstorming session, trying to figure out how to help the fishermen and deck hands whose livelihoods were being smothered by the BP oil spill. But with their boats docked and their oyster leases pretty much useless, what did they have to work with?

"As a joke, somebody yelled out, 'We got a lot of oil,'" Voisin said Thursday. About a week later, he said, it seemed less funny and more inspirational. Voisin (pronounced VWAH' san) last month helped launch a nonprofit relief effort for seafood workers thrown out of work by the spill. And on its website, horizonrelief.org, is the result of the inspiration: thick blobs of oil from the Deepwater Horizon rig leak, scooped from Louisiana waters and poured into a glass bottle, sealed with a cork and wax.

The price: $1,000.

One thousand of them are being offered as a limited edition souvenir of the nation's worst environmental disaster, unleashed after the rig exploded and sank in April. Voisin thinks of the bottles as a work of art that philanthropists might actually shell out for.

Lesser donations also are being accepted for those unwilling or unable to afford $1,000-a-bottle oil.

Money raised will go to oyster shuckers, fishing boat deck hands, day laborers, and others who might not have the time or necessary proof of previous income to apply for help through the BP claims process or government aid programs.

Owners and managers of seafood companies know who the people are and can  give the money without having to wait for applications or documentation, he said.

"We don't need W2s. We don't need 1040s. We know the places that are shutting down. We know the community," Voisin said.

"The obvious criticism is: What if you help someone who doesn't need it? If it helps one person who doesn't need it and it helps nine people who need it, that's a good trade. It's a trade the government can't make, I understand that. It's a trade that BP doesn't want to make from a cost perspective."
Voisin himself is keeping one of the bottles as a kind of dark inspiration  to keep fighting the spill. "I have a bottle of the enemy on my desk every day," he said.

He also helps fill the bottles in a company warehouse. "It's a very labor-intensive process," he says. "The stuff sticks to everything."