Jeff Hansen drove to Lake Berryessa with a friend this week, but not with a fishing rod or a Jet ski.

Hansen, 43, an out-of-work plumber who lives in Napa, was hoping to land a job. “There’s a lot of good plumbers that are out of work right now,” he said Hansen, who was laid off in January. “I just have to find work no matter what it is.”

Dan DeWeese, a Napa painter and a friend of Hansen’s, echoed the sentiment. "The economy is really slow," said DeWeese, 42, who is working part-time but looking to boost his income.

Hansen and DeWeese were among 65 people who came to a job fair at Spanish Flat Village at Lake Berryessa in an effort to land one of nine temporary jobs with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The federal agency, which controls the Berryessa lakeshore, recently received $4.2 million in federal stimulus funds to clean up privately-run resorts that have closed.

The bureau is a four-letter word to some Berryessa residents and users, as plans to revamp the lakeshore have been delayed, redrawn and hamstrung, including by former resort operators or trailer owners who left a lot of clean-up to be done when they pulled out.

But on Tuesday, none of the bureau’s critics were at the Spanish Flat senior center, where people dropped off resumes and applications.

The federal agency organized the job fair at Lake Berryessa to stimulate the local economy, said Janet Rogers, park manager at Lake Berryessa.

CeCe Short, a Realtor and member of the Lake Berryessa Chamber of Commerce, and Paul Quarneri, president of the Lake Berryessa senior center, were impressed by the turnout.

“It tells me how bad this job market is,” Quarneri said as applicants sat at long tables and filled out their paperwork for jobs pay between $17.09 and $26.67 per hour.

Jon Mannel, facility manager for the Bureau of Reclamation at Lake Berryessa, said he’s been getting a lot of phone calls from people looking for work. “The economy is tough out there,” he said.

Rogers said the bureau— which employs 35 people at the lake, including 25 full time — will give the nine employees jobs for one year cleaning up debris and trash from four closed resorts: Spanish Flat, Putah Creek, Rancho Monticello and Berryessa Marina.

Mannel said the staff takes two to three full 40-yard Dumpsters to local landfills every day. Contractors will be hired later to demolish and remove trailers left behind.

“We’re assuming between 100 and 150 trailers will have to be removed,” Mannel said after the first rush of applicants turned in their applications.

Rogers has not ruled out more job openings in the future to clean up the closed resorts, possibly including asbestos removal from buildings constructed in the 1950s.