Gulf seafood declared safe, but fishermen skeptical

VENICE, La. - Seafood from some parts of the oil-fouled Gulf of Mexico has been declared safe to eat by the government, based in part on human smell tests. But even some Gulf fishermen are questioning whether the fish and shrimp are OK to feed to their own families.

When shrimp season opens in a couple of weeks, fisherman Rusty Graybill, 28, worries that he'll collect traces of oil and dispersants - and that even if his catch doesn't smell, buyers and consumers will turn up their noses.

"If I put fish in a barrel of water and poured oil and Dove detergent over that, and mixed it up, would you eat that fish?" said Graybill, a commercial oyster, blue crab and shrimp angler who grew up fishing the marshes of St. Bernard. "I wouldn't feed it to you or my family. I'm afraid someone's going to get sick."

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called on BP yesterday to fund a 20-year testing and certification program to restore confidence in Gulf seafood, which accounts for most of the U.S. shrimp and oyster consumption and about 2 percent of overall U.S. seafood consumption.

FDA Commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg said yesterday, however, that the government is "confident all appropriate steps have been taken to ensure that seafood harvested from the waters being opened today is safe and that Gulf seafood lovers everywhere can be confident eating and enjoying the fish and shrimp that will be coming out of this area."

Louisiana wildlife regulators on Friday reopened state-controlled waters east of the Mississippi to harvesting of shrimp and "fin fish" such as redfish, mullet and trout. So-called "smell tests" on dozens of specimens from the area revealed barely traceable amounts of toxins, the federal Food and Drug Administration said. Oysters, blue crab are still off limits to fishing.

The tests were done not by chemical analysis, but by scientists trained to detect the smell of oil and dispersant. Federal scientists are trying to develop the first chemical test for measuring dispersant, FDA spokeswoman Meghan Scott said.

The dispersants can kill incubating sea life, experts say, though its long-term effects are unknown. In humans, long-term exposure can cause health problems, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Sunday, BP chief operating officer Doug Suttles told reporters he would eat Gulf seafood and "would serve it to my family."

Engineers were to conduct a final test by yesterday evening to determine whether to proceed with the "static kill" plan to pump mud, and perhaps cement, into the mile-deep busted well. If the test is successful, BP officials said, engineers will spend most of today, and possibly into Thursday, slowly pumping the heavy mud down the well.