FISHING now restricted from Louisiana to Florida

WASHINGTON — NOAA is restricting fishing for a minimum of ten days in federal waters most affected by the BP oil spill, largely between Louisiana state waters at the mouth of the Mississippi River to waters off Florida’s Pensacola Bay.

The closure is effective immediately. Details can be found at: http://sero.nmfs.noaa.gov/. Fishermen who wish to contact BP about a claim should call (800) 440-0858.

“NOAA scientists are on the ground in the area of the oil spill taking water and seafood samples in an effort to ensure the safety of the seafood and fishing activities,” said Dr. Jane Lubchenco, NOAA Administrator, who met with more than 100 fishermen in Louisiana's Plaquemines Parish on Friday night.

“There are finfish, crabs, oysters and shrimp in the Gulf of Mexico near the area of the oil spill,” said Roy Crabtree, NOAA Fisheries Southeast Regional Administrator. “The Gulf is such an important biologic and economic area in terms of seafood production and recreational fishing.”

According to NOAA, there are 3.2 million recreational fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico region who took 24 million fishing trips in 2008. Commercial fishermen in the Gulf harvested more than 1 billion pounds of finfish and shellfish in 2008.

NOAA is working with the state governors to evaluate the need to declare a fisheries disaster in order to facilitate federal aid to fishermen in these areas. NOAA fisheries representatives in the region will be meeting with fishermen this week to assist them.

The states of Louisiana and Mississippi have requested NOAA to declare a federal fisheries disaster. BP will be hiring fishermen to help clean up from the spill and deploy boom in the Gulf of Mexico. Interested fishermen should call (425) 745-8017.

NOAA will continue to evaluate the need for fisheries closures based on the evolving nature of the spill and will re-open the fisheries as appropriate. NOAA will also re-evaluate the closure areas as new information that would change the dimension of these closed areas becomes available.

http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/92625229.html

They can't be 100 percent "cleaned" even if you started tomorrow and think of how many decades it will take to bring size of the colonies back to where they were last week.

see, this is all a socialist plot to ....ahhh....


I'm waiting for the RWers to blame this all on Obama, probably already have and I just haven't noticed ...

mark

his assessment made earlier that:
Walker said the sheen could collect on beaches and in estuaries, but it will evaporate within a week.
Walker’s plan is to let any sheen that makes its way into the marshes evaporate naturally.

Read more: http://www.sunherald.com/2010/05/01/2146383/taylor-expects-spill-to-break.html#ixzz0mooqlv6o

That area looks to be in dire straits for some time, and it's going to take a whole lot more than wishing it would evaporate to address the reality of the situation.

It's in LBN. That's part of Taylor's district if I am not mistaken.

He needs to re-examine his views on this.

Of course, we all knew that as soon as we saw him likening this mess to rainbows and chocolate milk.

Reminds me of Dixy Lee Ray. She was a Democratic Governor up here in 1976. A bit quirky, but highly accomplished with a degree in Marine Biology and having taught Zoology at the UW.
Then she started pushing for super tankers in Puget Sound, less environmental protection and more nuclear plants and taking conservative positions on most issues, even going on to support Reagan.

She thought oil spill dangers "were exaggerated" http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1338&dat=19770521&id=W78SAAAAIBAJ&sjid=9PgDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4533,1801469

Luckily, Magnuson prevented that: http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?displaypage=output.cfm&file_id=5620

talking about how his town was nothing but fishing, then they cut to the packing house where the owner said that after the seafood on the tables was cleaned and packed, the house was shut down, everyone was out of work.

Now the fisherfolks are out of work, the packers and sorters and cleaners and boat fixers and all of those folks are out of work. Will the rightwing stand in the way of them getting something to tide them over?

I have this sick feeling that we'll never eat oysters from a Louisiana bayou again in my life time, crawfish, fuggetaboudit.

all because of greed.

All around.