Saving Seafood

California Spill Not the Environmental Disaster First Feared

October 9, 2021 — After a crude oil sheen was detected on the waters off the Southern California coast, environmentalists feared the worst: A massive spill that would wreck the ecosystem.

A week later, the region and its signature beaches appear to have been spared a potentially calamitous fate, though the long-term toll on plant and animal life remains unknown.

The Coast Guard estimates a minimum of about 25,000 gallons (95,000 liters) of oil spilled from a ruptured pipeline off the shores of Orange County and no more than 132,000 gallons (500,000 liters).

“Based on what we’re seeing, it’s a lighter impact than expected of a worst-case discharge,” California Fish and Wildlife Lt. Christian Corbo said. “We’re hoping to see less impacts to the shoreline, less impacts to wildlife, based on that lowered threshold.”

The news was welcome after a harrowing week of beach closures in seaside communities where life revolves around the water. Officials initially feared Huntington Beach — dubbed Surf City USA — could be off-limits to surfers and swimmers for months. But Mayor Kim Carr on Thursday said she was “cautiously optimistic” they could be back in the water in weeks.

Read the full story at NBC New York

 

LOUISIANA: Oyster farmers brace for slow season; shortages close harvest areas

September 8, 2016 — JEFFERSON PARISH, La. — Oyster season opened Wednesday, but only in parts of Louisiana. Reports from the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries do not look good for oyster stock or oyster farmers.

Louisiana is the biggest oyster-producing state in the nation. According to figures from 2014, it is a $317 million industry employing about 3,500 people. But the industry is suffering, and several harvesting areas will be off-limits because of shortages.

Factors contributing to the low resources include too much fresh water in the areas in which the oysters grow and the 2010 Gulf Oil spill, which has led to a steady decline in production.

“It’s getting worse and worse, and I don’t know where it goes from here,” said Matthew Lepetich, a second-generation oyster farmer and owner of Mato’s Premium Oysters. “I remember this time of the year, right after Labor Day, we were getting the boats ready and we were going to work.”

On opening day of this season, however, Lepetich was nowhere near the water, “because there’s no season. There’s no seed. There’s no oyster. There’s nothing, and it’s been that way for several years. Ever since Katrina, it never really recovered because Katrina knocked holes in the levee and they haven’t filled them,” he said.”

Read the full story at WDSU