Ten day restriction on fishing between the mouth of the Mississippi and Pensacola Bay imposed as enormous oil slick continues moving its way toward the coast.
See the video at The Boston Globe.
Oil in the Gulf puts many livelihoods in limbo
When Kenny LeFebvre is out of work, so are the two men who help him haul glistening blue crabs from the waters he has fished since he quit school at 14. So are his sister and brother-in-law, who sell him bait, buy back the catch, pack it up, then resell it to buyers who put it on dinner tables in Maryland.
And so are thousands of other families just like theirs in some of the world’s richest fishing grounds, livelihoods in limbo as winds from exactly the wrong direction — the southeast — threaten to push an oil slick the size of Puerto Rico ever closer to the fragile, fingerlike bayous.
“I don’t know what I’ll do. I really don’t,’’ said LeFebvre, who unloaded 2,100 pounds of crab about 20 minutes before natural resource officials ordered the fishing zones in St. Bernard Parish closed. There was no sign of oil yet. Not even a whiff in the breeze. And the crabs had just started biting.
Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.
CANADA: U.S. oil spill could hit Atlantic tuna
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could have a serious long-term impact on tuna stocks off Atlantic Canada.
The Gulf is the spawning ground for bluefin tuna that migrate to the Atlantic region.
"Many fish are going down to the Gulf to spawn," said Jackie Savitz, a marine biologist with Oceana, an international conservation group based in Washington.
"The larvae of the fish is actually the most sensitive life stage to the toxic effects of oil. And one fish that's spawning right now down there is the bluefin tuna."
Read the complete story at CBC News.
Collateralized Fish Obligations? Fishery Management And Catch Shares
A program promoted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Defense Fund aims to address overfishing, but will small fishermen get squeezed out of the process?
Multiple studies suggest our world's oceans are being overfished. While alarming, such studies often eclipse successful examples of sustainable fishing practices, such as Oregon's Port Orford Ocean Resource Team (POORT). This community-based organization focuses on both healthy fish stocks and the economic viability of the town, where operators of small fishing boats work alongside scientists and researchers to ensure sustainable fishing methods.
Rather than strengthen and expand efforts like Port Orford, however, fishermen say the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is strongly pushing a different program to address overfishing: the privatization of the seas through "catch shares."
Read the complete story at Truthout.
FLORIDA: Gulf oil spill swiftly balloons, could move east
A sense of doom settled over the American coastline from Louisiana to Florida on Saturday as a massive oil slick spewing from a ruptured well kept growing, and experts warned that an uncontrolled gusher could create a nightmare scenario if the Gulf Stream carries it toward the Atlantic.
President Barack Obama planned to visit the region Sunday to assess the situation amid growing criticism that the government and oil company BP PLC should have done more to stave off the disaster. Meanwhile, efforts to stem the flow and remove oil from the surface by skimming it, burning it or spiking it with chemicals to disperse it continued with little success.
"These people, we've been beaten down, disaster after disaster," said Matt O'Brien of Venice, whose fledgling wholesale shrimp dock business is under threat from the spill.
"They've all got a long stare in their eye," he said. "They come asking me what I think's going to happen. I ain't got no answers for them. I ain't got no answers for my investors. I ain't got no answers."
Read the complete story at The Palm Beach Post.
Some fear oil from Gulf spill could reach N.C.
Oil from the Gulf Coast spill could sweep northward to the Carolinas within a few weeks if the situation doesn't improve, some experts say.
Others are calling it a remote possibility – saying their biggest worry is for the N.C. fishing industry, which depends on Gulf Coast oysters and shrimp in the off season.
The spill is at the top of the "very energetic" Loop Current, a part of the Gulf Stream that sends water south along the western Florida shelf, around the state and northward along the East Coast, said Jerald Ault, a professor of marine biology at the University of Miami.
"The net result is, the potential for dispersion is very high," he said.
Read the complete story at the Charlotte Observer.
Oil spill fuels opposition to drilling off New Jersey coast
Opponents of a federal plan to allow drilling off mid-Atlantic states said Friday that the massive spill in the Gulf Coast shows why expanding oil leases is a bad idea for New Jersey.
New Jersey environmentalists and political leaders said the Gulf spill had solidified their opposition, and a fishing group that previously supported proposed oil drilling in the Atlantic Ocean said the disaster changed many members’ opinions.
The spill 40 miles off Louisiana is leaking an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil per day into the gulf, making it one of the worst manmade ecological disasters in the United States. The spill started after an oil rig leased by British Petroleum exploded April 20, killing 11 people.
At the present rate of leakage, the disaster could eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska by mid-June, a distinct possibility if oil companies fail to stem the flow.
Read the complete story at The Press of Atlantic City.
Pingree: No Oil Drilling in Gulf of Maine
The 1st District Democrat says she's cosponsored legislation that would ban any oil drilling in the Gulf of Maine.
Maine's Congresswoman Chellie Pingree says she'll strongly oppose any effort to open the Gulf of Maine to offshore oil drilling.
The 1st District Democrat says such drilling would put Maine fishing jobs at risk. "We don't want to see what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico ever happen in the Gulf of Maine," Pingree says in a statement. "An oil spill like that one here in Maine would be devastating to the fishing economy and our environment."
Read the complete story at MPBN.
‘It Halfway Broke My Heart’ Says Louisiana Angler, As Oil Washes In
As oil washes ashore near the mouth of the Mississippi River, fishermen swallow fears about the future of what state license plates call "Sportsman's Paradise."
Crabbers pull up traps.
Shrimpers make a final pass.
Guides earn a few hundred dollars taking TV crews out to the mammoth oil spill that threatens one of the most valuable – and fragile – estuaries along the Gulf Coast.
"It halfway broke my heart when I came to Ernie's Hole, one of our favorite fishing spots, and there wasn't a soul there," says Capt. Cade Thomas. "And there was oil in it, enough that you could see it."
Eerily – sickeningly – the oil spill has followed the path and pattern of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. What didn't look so bad in the beginning becomes a disaster that only gets worse.
Read the complete story at The Ledger.
EDITORIAL: In the Gulf, a grim warning about fossil-fuel addiction
STATES ALONG the Gulf of Mexico have bet their fishing and tourism industries on the safety of oil drilling offshore, and that bet, which New England has refused to make, has turned into a losing one. The nation as a whole should take the growing oil spill in the Gulf as a warning — that there are consequences to relying so heavily on fossil fuels, and that domestic oil production is no panacea for US energy needs.
President Obama announced earlier this year that he would permit more offshore drilling. Even under that policy, the waters of New England and especially the fertile fishing grounds of Georges Bank would still be off-limits. Yesterday, Obama sensibly said there will be no new drilling anywhere until engineers learn what caused the Deepwater Horizon oil rig to explode and its “blowout preventer’’ to fail. That inquiry should begin even while efforts continue to stop the discharge of oil into the Gulf — currently at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day — and contain the massive leak. It’s vital to prevent more disasters. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has ordered teams to inspect the 30 drilling rigs and 47 production platforms in deepwater locations in the Gulf.
Four decades ago, an oil-rig spill off Santa Barbara in California helped give birth to the environmental movement. Since then, the oil drilling industry has had a generally good record. That was one reason that Obama ended the moratorium on drilling from Delaware to Florida. By doing so, he hoped to win support from drilling advocates for the broader energy and climate change legislation working its way through Congress.
Read the complete story at The Boston Globe.