Surveys of coastal oyster grounds have discovered extensive deaths of the shellfish, further threatening an industry already in free-fall because of BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
The deaths are blamed on the opening of release valves on the Mississippi River in an attempt to use fresh water to flush oil out to sea. Giant diversion structures at Caernarvon and Davis Pond have been running since April 25 on the orders of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and local officials with the consent of the Army Corps of Engineers.
For the past 82 days, about 30,000 cubic feet of water per second has flowed into coastal Louisiana, enough to fill the Louisiana Superdome, home to the New Orleans Saints football team, nearly once an hour.
"What I saw does not look good," Patrick Banks, oyster manager for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said in an e-mail. He said he found no evidence of oil on the reefs east of the Mississippi River, but he said they "looked to be fallow reef."
Banks dove onto reefs at Black Bay, Bay Crab and Telegraph Island, where the state is building public oyster grounds for farmers to collect baby oysters and transfer them to their private leases. Once there, they are raised to market size.
Public reefs account for up to half of Louisiana's oyster harvest, an industry that employs about 6,000 people and is valued at $330 million. On Thursday, Banks said oyster deaths also were found west of the Mississippi, though the surveys there are not yet complete.
Reports also are coming in about damage to private oyster grounds.
John Tesvich, chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force, a state committee overseeing the industry, said the reports of oyster deaths on private leases are worrisome.
Oysters use saltwater to make their shells and need it to keep their vital membranes working properly. They can tolerate small doses of fresh water for perhaps a couple of weeks, but they will die if they suck in too much.
If you've enjoyed Gulf oysters in the past, it may be a very long time before you get to enjoy them again.
The rest is HERE featuring disturbing pictures.
And so it goes.
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I do not like oysters. (My parents did, though.) But I understand what a disastrous complication this could be for the ecosystem as well as the local economy. It's as if we are writing the book down there on how to destroy our earth without the aid of nuclear weapons.
ReplyDeleteI hope the one silver lining to this terrible cloud is people will remember this, thanks to food deprivation.
ReplyDeleteIt 'hits home' more this way/perhaps people will be outraged enough to stand up/do something.