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Is is safe to eat that shrimp? Will your red snapper have a slight oily residue or a chemical taint? How about a subtle lacing of Corexit added to your crab salad just for flavor? Or is the problem not the taste, but radical changes at the cellular level in the seafood?
Now you can go online and read the testing results before you chow down...that is, if you believe the data.
Louisiana seafood safety testing results go online.
Officials in Louisiana are attempting to remove some of the suspicion about the seafood from their coastal waters being contaminated by the effects of the BP gusher. Test results from studies conducted by Louisiana departments of wildlife and fisheries, environmental quality, health and hospitals, and agriculture and forestry (that's the state-sponsored, BP-paid-for stuff, guys...) were unveiled a new website on Friday to answer questions about seafood safety.
The website, www.gulfsource.org has results from over 2100 samples taken since the spill, and maintains that no sample of seafood, water or sediment has tested near the federally-established "level of concern."
"Our seafood in Louisiana is absolutely the most tested seafood in the world, and we've got a lot of data we want to share with the public," said Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham. "We obviously have to overcome consumer resistance to Louisiana seafood, and part of the process is education."
The testing is paid through an $18 million grant from BP PLC after the oil spill. Shrimp, crab, finfish and oysters are sampled monthly, along with water and sediment, to look for oil, toxins and chemicals and determine how much the 2010 spill has damaged the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem.
Louisiana leaders say they want to advertise and market the findings around the country to seafood buyers who have stopped getting Gulf Coast oysters and shrimp because they fear contamination. Online ads already have begun to tout the new GulfSource website, and they plan to expand the advertising.
Okay. So everything is fine. Then please explain this...
Real trouble could be ahead for Gulf fish, wildlife, researcher warns.
The Gulf killifish, a lowly marsh minnow known locally as a “cocahoe,” showed signs of the hydrocarbon poisoning that collapsed the fishing industry in Prince William Sound after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
In a study conducted by Louisiana State University and published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) repoted changes at the cellular level in the tiny fish, even though the toxins — polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — are present in levels so small they are labeled “trace” or “undetectable.”
Andrew Whitehead, lead author of the study, says he was surprised at the degree of the changes from such low levels of hydrocarbon.
“We were detecting cellular responses to toxins that are predictive of impairment of reproduction and embryo development, and we also detected that gills were compromised. We are seeing early warning indicators that would precede any population-level long-term effects".
Whitehead says the levels of hydrocarbons found in the fish are too low to affect humans, but considers the tiny baitfish to be good indicator of the health of the environment because the cocahoe is plentiful, found across the system and is an important link in the food chain.
Immediately after the BP spill, Whitehead and his team established six monitoring sites, and obtained baseline levels on the cocahoe in the marshes before the oil reached them.
Tests were run on the water samples to look for oil pollution, especially polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, known carcinogens that can remain in the environment more than 50 years. Levels were measured at “trace,” considered insignificant to human health, and at even smaller amounts, listed as “undetectable.”
Whitehead said “undetectable” is the term used when a toxin does not register in water samples but animals exhibit biological responses that are symptomatic of exposure.
“We measure biology, not just water chemistry, and that’s what you have to do when you’re looking for the effects of these types of toxins,” Whitehead said. “And, really, the cellular responses we were seeing from such low levels of exposure are what was really surprising, and what is cause for concern long-term.”
One of those responses was obvious and expected when oil came into two of the six study sites: measurable gill damage, common in fish exposed to hydrocarbon toxins.
“When you mess with gill structure you may compromise their ability to deal with natural stressors, such as hypoxia (low oxygen levels), changes in salinity and that type of stress,” Whitehead said. “So we’re worried this could compound the impact of nature stress all animals will face in nature.”
More worrisome were affects that are less noticeable immediately.
“We detected compromised estrogen signaling, which is pretty important to reproduction,” Whitehead said. “And the oil came ashore during the peak times for reproduction for many species in the habitat, so we don’t know how widespread this is" among other species.
The results mirror some findings after the Valdez disaster. While most experts thought the dynamism of the Mississippi River delta’s sub-tropical ecosystem would allow a quicker surface recovery than that seen in frigid Alaska, the big concern was the eventual impact of long-lived toxic hydrocarbons that had spread across the region and settled into its soft water bottoms. Some of the worst effects of the Valdez pollution didn’t show up for two or three years.
Whitehead’s findings are perhaps the first sign that real trouble may be ahead in Louisiana. He said the impaired embryo response will be a long-term problem, but cocahoes would have to be followed closely for two or three generations before determining if the population is heading for collapse. The affect of such an event would ripple through the ecosystem because cocahoes are a key food source for species such as speckled trout, redfish, flounder and drum, he said.
State officials were not surprised by the findings. I am not surprised they were not surprised. That's when you publish your own "study" to support your "findings".
Randy Pausina, head of the Office of Fisheries at the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said research on the Valdez spill indicated serious ecosystem impacts might not show up for years. However, most of the $13 million grant his agency won from BP for post-spill monitoring is being used to sample commercial species for human consumption safety, not for biological changes in the fish. He said his agency is using regular population monitoring to determine if there are bigger problems.
“If we see a drop in abundance or recruitment, then we’ll take a further look,” he said.
Until then, everybody come on down and eat some seafood! Ignore the three eyes on that snapper's head. You don't eat the head anyway, do you?
Okay. Everything is still fine. The seafood is "safe to eat". Well, first you have to catch it to eat it, right?
Then please explain this... Already reported on by peraspera in Wednesday's diary, but reprinted here as part of the whole picture as to the environmental degradation that the Gulf is facing...
Harvesters dispirited by white shrimp catch.
The president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association says this season's catch is off 80%. White shrimp are harvest off the southeastern coast of Louisiana - the area in close proximity to the BP spill.
“I am talking to the guys, I am talking to the docks, and they are telling me that they are 80 percent off,” said Clint Guidry, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association. “We should have had a good year this year.”
Carol Terrebonne, who runs the Seafood Shed, a seafood wholesaler in Golden Meadow, agreed.
“Usually at this time of the year, we are loading trailer loads,” Terrebonne said. “It’s just not happening.”
The white shrimp season opened Aug. 22, said Marty Bourgeois, a biologist with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
The lack of a shrimp catch is affecting businesses farther inland, forcing seafood packers and processors to limit shifts and lay off employees.
“We have done zero this year,” said Randy Pearce, owner-operator of Doran Seafood in Independence. “We have not peeled one Louisiana white shrimp.”
Pearce says he has already reduced the number of working days per week to three - down from five or six during a normal season. He has also had to lay off 25 of his 50 employees.
Guidry says the beaches might look clean, but what may be happening underwater is evident in the decimated catch.
“Our Grand Isle beach is producing less than one percent of the shrimp it normally produces,” he said.
Many fishermen are blaming the lack of shrimp on the oil leak, said Guidry.
“I think you will find the parishes that were most affected by oil are down (in terms of shrimp),” Guidry said. “We are just seeing something (a lower number of shrimp), and what we see on the beaches is a minute fraction of what went on in the Gulf. I don’t think we will ever know what it (the oil) killed.”
Guidry cited a study published Sept. 26 by LSU researchers Fernando Galvez and Andrew Whitehead. The study found that exposure to oil causes changes in fish genes that could have implications for future fish populations.
“You look at this fish study, you put the pieces of the puzzle together,” Guidry said.
State officials cautioned that data about the white shrimp harvest have not been fully collected, much less analyzed.
“We are not at a stage where we are going to have any concrete data (on the catch),” said Watkins of the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. “Without that, it’s too difficult for us to speculate.”
So Fish and Wildlife does their own little study, and finds out that everything is just ticky-boo...
Right.
The New Orleans Times-Picayune takes a stand in an editorial:
Keep watch on Gulf killifish.
The results of an LSU study that found toxins in a small Gulf minnow should prompt additional research to examine whether the problem is related to last year's BP oil spill. The study, which tracked the small marsh-dweller Gulf killifish, found signs of the hydrocarbon poisoning that preceded the collapse of some fish populations in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill.
That's worrisome.
Researchers are doubly concerned because they found negative effects on the Gulf fish even though the toxins were present only at small levels labeled "trace" and "undetectable." The latter label is used when a toxin is not detected in the water but the animals exhibit symptoms of exposure to the substance.
~snip~
But researchers also found other biological responses that were surprising, and they said that is cause for long-term concern. Clearly, scientists need to continue their monitoring.
A long-lasting effect from the spill in Louisiana's fisheries could have serious environmental and economic implications. It's evidently too early to say, but officials and BP need to pay attention -- and be ready to respond.
And then there are the oysters...
Louisiana oyster season may be delayed by tests for oil from Gulf of Mexico spill.
The start of the oyster-harvesting season may be delayed while the National Resource Damage Assessment teams assess the health of oyster beds, says Harry Blanchet, a biologist with the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries.
Since it will be another month before the Louisiana Wildlife and Fisheries Commission meets again, it authorized Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Robert Barham to delay the season up to two weeks -- from Oct. 17 to as late as one-half hour before sunrise on Nov. 1.
Blanchet said Louisiana has about 1.6 million acres of public grounds, though large swaths of that are in areas where the water is too salty for most oysters. He did not know how many acres were hit by oil.
"Many of those areas did get closed," he said. "But in some cases it was precautionary closures because oil was projected to be in that area. I don't know how much got impacted directly."
A few oystering areas off the mouth of the Mississippi River are still closed, according to a map on the department website.
About 65,000 acres in Sabine and Calcasieu lakes and 380,000 acres in private leases are not affected. The west cove of Calcasieu Lake was already scheduled to open Nov. 1.
Precautionary closures after the oil spill kept oyster boats out of some of Louisiana's richest areas, which include leases harvested year round. And, in an attempt to keep oil out of Louisiana's wetlands, fresh water was diverted from inland waterways during the spill, killing oysters by diluting brackish water.
The department's samples from about 35,000 acres of public seed beds found the oysters there in numbers and sizes big enough for harvest, Blanchet said.
I absolutely love raw oysters. But even if the "testing" proves they are "safe", I don't think I want to eat them. Oysters are bottom-dwelling filter feeders. That alone means that any substance on the bottom and/or in the water will be accumulated by the oysters. Oysters normally are prone to becoming tainted by numerous substances, most commonly by bacterial infestations like cholera, which sickened eleven people in the Florida panhandle earlier this year.
Cholera is one thing. But I don't think I want to take the chance of acquiring a more exotic and futuristic malady, like Corexit poisoning...
Put the pieces of the puzzle together, dammit. There is a reason for this, and it's is being ignored - written off, swept under the rug - because of greed, nothing more.
Force-feed BP execs some tainted oysters, please. And deliver some to Congress, too. Maybe that will convince them.
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