The oil washing onto Louisiana’s shores from the April 20th BP disaster has also surged a feeling of despair across the state, where a way of life and culture is threatened. But industry insiders and Louisiana State U. experts have a possible cure to the black-crude blues — eat a shrimp po-boy, fry some catfish or slurp down some oysters.
“Everybody enjoys seafood, and in Louisiana we love it,” said LSU AgCenter nutritionist Beth Reames. “The method used for the assessment of seafood safety is sophisticated and is being monitored by several agencies. What we get in our markets and in our restaurants is something we can be assured is a wholesome, safe product.”
Nearly 33 percent — or just more than 80,000 square miles — of the Gulf of Mexico’s exclusive economic zone is closed to commercial and recreational fishing, including catch and release, though “the majority of federal waters” there are open, according to the National Weather Service.
“It’s just like with beef or chicken. If there’s one strand of salmonella, the government will shut it all down.” said Mike Anderson II, an owner of Mike Anderson’s Seafood on West Lee Drive. “We’re being safe and not serving anything we shouldn’t.”
Anderson said the only seafood he’s struggled to keep in stock are oysters. He said he’s filed claims with BP to “be covered for the increased costs” of seafood, though he hasn’t yet taken a hit from decreased business.
“It would be hard to say right now how bad it will affect me as far as customers coming in,” Anderson said. “It’s more so the cost changes that’s affecting us, and BP has been willing to fix all that.”
Reames said multiple agencies — including NOAA, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — use sensory and analytical tests to determine seafood’s safety. These daily tests are conducted on local, state and federal levels, with experts conducting sensory analysis at a NOAA lab in Pascagoula, Miss., while chemical analysis is taking place in Washington state.
“These agencies are all sort of functioning in their own capacities,” Reames said. “We monitored these issues before the spill, and now it’s just increased efforts.”
Reames said these agencies monitor harvesting waters, make precautionary closures, test seafood meat and issue public advisories.
Bill Pizzolato, co-owner of Tony’s Seafood Market and Deli on Plank Road, said he hasn’t stocked oysters in three weeks because his suppliers don’t have open beds to harvest. Though Tony’s stocks fresh crabs and crawfish, the shrimp for sale there was all frozen before the spill took its toll on the fisheries.
The Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board estimates the “current tonnage of shrimp coming into Louisiana coastal ports for first sale is only one-third of the 2009 harvest” mainly because of closed fishing areas.
Pizzolato said seafood supply is noticeably harder to find — some of his suppliers have left the seafood industry to find temporary work in oil spill response efforts, and others are unable to work because of precautionary closures to their harvesting grounds.
“We’ve got enough supply in the cold storage to last us,” Pizzolato said. “Some of the items we have to buy may go up 30 to 50 percent higher than it was last year. We’re just praying and hoping once they get that well capped, all of this well get back to normal again.”
But Anderson didn’t share Pizzolato’s optimism for the seafood industry to quickly bounce back.
“Right now it’s fine,” Anderson said. “But a year from now I don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s going to be long term before we really start feeling it. It could be a year or two before we realize what type of pollution problems there are and how bad the breeding grounds are messed up. But for the most part, I think we’ll be OK.”
The Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board, in cooperation with eight celebrity chefs including John Folse, gathered in Grand Isle Monday “to show their united support of Louisiana’s fishermen and seafood suppliers.” The chefs talked to the public about the importance of Louisiana seafood to their businesses, toured oil-tainted waters, raised money for charities and cooked seafood dishes for a luncheon.
“No one will come eat at these great restaurants on the coast, and the worst thing of all, nobody is talking about all the great fish and shellfish we are about to lose forever,” Chef Charles Carroll said in a news release. “This man-made disaster has changed our world and will soon change the way we eat. We all need to pay attention.”
Reames said the most common contaminants found in seafood exposed to oil spills are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are found throughout the environment naturally. Though there are no set guidelines for limits of PAH exposure in seafood, experiences in previous spills have given experts a comparison for safety, and there have been no recorded illnesses because of PAH exposure at normal levels in food.
NOAA scientists, working with researchers from LSU and the Mote Marine Laboratory, are testing samples from 60 sites on the Gulf Coast for 120 chemical and microbial contaminants, including 60 oil-related compounds. Once oil reaches the sites from which samples were taken, new data will be collected to “determine any pre-existing level and type of contamination and identify any change in contamination that might be linked to the spill,” according to NOAA.
“We’re hoping for the best that there are adequate supplies and that new waters open,” Reames said. “I hope we can keep Louisiana seafood marketable in the amounts produced that will provide for us and for the rest of the country and the world.”