Some fishing opened in Gulf
With all that oil are we ready for eating the fish from there?
FISHING RESUMES IN GULF, BUT WILL CONSUMERS BITE?
Reopened areas can revive industry
Saturday, July 31, 2010 By Chris Kirkham and Brett Anderson
After a month of near-total closures of commercial fishing grounds across southeast Louisiana due to the BP oil spill, state officials on Friday reopened a large section of waters east of the Mississippi River for shrimp and finfish harvesting after consultation and lab tests approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.
The reopening was welcomed by seafood suppliers and local restaurants who have seen supplies dwindle over the past three months. But the move introduces a tricky era of managing public perception for the Louisiana seafood industry, which now must convince consumers, locally and nationally, that federal and state testing will ensure safety.
"These waters have been carefully examined in terms of oil contamination and in terms of the safety of the seafood," said FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg, in town Friday to announce the reopenings east of the river with a slew of state fisheries, seafood and restaurant officials. "And we all feel very comfortable standing here today that the products that will be harvested from these waters will be safe, wholesome and delicious for consumption."
From a practical standpoint, the commercial fishing reopenings may have little immediate impact on the seafood supply from the state. For reasons unrelated to the oil spill, shrimping remains closed in Lake Borgne and many of the interior marshes east of the river until mid-August, to allow young white shrimp to grow to a marketable size.
The Department of Wildlife and Fisheries was pushing for the FDA to reopen crab fishing as well, but Hamburg said chemical testing of crabmeat has taken longer than the tissue samples of shrimp and finfish, pushing that reopening back until at least next week. The delay has crab dealers and fishers miffed.
Oyster grounds for much of southeast Louisiana remain closed, although three oyster areas east of the river also reopened early this morning. Those three zones were closed as a precaution, and underwent state seafood testing. But because no oil was spotted in those areas, the oysters did not have to go through the FDA lab process.
From a symbolic standpoint, however, the reopening of commercial fishing areas has given some local seafood suppliers the confidence to rebuild their relationships with markets across the country.
"This is the beginning, in my opinion," said Cliff Hall, vice president at New Orleans Fish House, one of the city's largest suppliers who has had to shut down a plant in Jackson, Miss., due to lack of supply. "It's at least something positive out there that more and more of our grounds are safer to fish in. It's going to help our perception more than it's going to help our supply in the beginning, but we've got to take that as a positive and say that at least in a few weeks we can have the supply of shrimp and fish."
Friday's reopening comes after weeks of negotiations and testing by the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the FDA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Wildlife and Fisheries and the Department of Health and Hospitals have been collecting finfish, crab, shrimp and oyster samples from waters across the state since May 9, conducting professional smell tests for oil and chemical analysis for the risk of hydrocarbons in fish tissues.
In addition
to those state tests, the FDA, NOAA and all Gulf states agreed in June to a commercial fisheries reopening protocol that requires samples to be tested by highly trained NOAA smell testers and also be chemically tested in one of the FDA's labs. The waters east of the Mississippi River are the first in Louisiana to be reopened as part of the state and federal testing process.
