LDWF, FDA reopen selected commercial fishing areas

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, in conjunction with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, reopened some commercial fishing areas that were closed by the Deepwater Horizon spill.

LDWF assistant secretary of fisheries Randy Pausina said he is “absolutely” confident enough to eat seafood out of the Gulf.

“I have to trust them,” Pausina said. “The top scientists in the country are working on it.”

There are three stages of animal testing via FDA protocol: a field sensory test, another sensory test in Pascagoula and then the samples are sent to one of the six FDA labs around the country for tissue examination, which looks at pH levels for components of oil.

The areas are opened for both recreational and commercial fishing, although the openings include fishing for shrimp and finfish only. Crab testing has taken longer to process and the commercial harvest of oysters is regulated by the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

The crab testing is not radically different, but the FDA is having problems on their end and LDWF had to send samples three times. The FDA had problems defrosting the crabs the first time, and left a second, live sampling untouched in an ice chest for a couple of days, Pausina said.

“I don’t think there is anything more difficult with it as far as the testing goes,” Pausina said. “I just think it had something to do with the handling of it.”

Other than the oil, seafood consumers are worried about the dangers of digesting dispersants.

The FDA website states “available information indicates that the dispersants being used to combat the oil spill do not accumulate in seafood and therefore there is no public health concern from them due to seafood consumption.”

Pausina echoed that statement and said seafood consumers do not have to worry about dispersants.

“The can absorb it through their gills, but the animals don’t accumulate it past their metabolism,” Pausina said. “To this date, no dispersant has been found in state waters.”

All areas southeast of Southwest Pass will remain closed, but the area northwest of the pass and areas north of 29 degrees 12 minutes 40 seconds 00 seconds latitude and west of 89 degrees 25 minutes 00 seconds longitude are open.

Barataria Bay remains closed between 29 degrees 30 minutes 00 seconds and 29 degrees 23 minutes 00 seconds north latitude, west of 89 degrees 50 minutes 00 seconds longitude and east of the Barataria Waterway.

Bayou Lafourche serves as a boundary between open and closed areas on the west side of the Louisiana coast. As far as the actual bayou is concerned, everything south of 29 degrees 12 minutes 50 seconds latitude is closed until 29 degrees 03 minutes 00 seconds, where the areas open.

Commercial fishing is also banned to the west of the bayou, but it is open to the east excluding an area south of 29 degrees 11 minutes 40 seconds and north of 29 degrees 08 minutes 15 seconds. The longitude constraints are east of 90 degrees 07 minutes 00 seconds and west of 90 degrees 03 minutes 00 seconds.

“We’ll keep pushing to get the rest open as soon as we can,” Pausina said. He added that only 13 percent of Louisiana waters are closed at the moment.

A map of opened and closed fishing areas is available at www.wlf.louisiana.gov.

Louisiana’s fall inshore shrimp season opened Aug. 16 in Shrimp Management Zones 1, 2 and 3.