GRAND ISLE, La. — Fishermen who spent much of the summer mopping up oil from BP’s disastrous spill got back to work as the fall shrimping season in Louisiana’s coastal waters opened Monday amid anxiety over whether the catch will be tainted by crude and whether anyone will buy it even if it is clean.
Scores of shrimpers headed out at first light, and early reports indicated a plentiful and clean catch. But a new analysis of federal estimates shows the optimism may be premature about how much oil remains in the Gulf of Mexico.
“We’re not seeing any oil where I’m at. No tar balls, nothing,” said Brian Amos, a 53-year-old shrimper who trawled in his 28-foot skiff, The Rolling Thunder, in a bay near Empire.
It was a step toward normalcy for many coastal towns that have been in limbo in the nearly four months since the spill shut down fishing.
Five Georgia scientists who reviewed the data said Monday that instead of only 26 percent of the oil remaining, as a federal report said earlier this month, it’s actually closer to 80 percent.
“Where has all the oil gone? It hasn’t gone anywhere. It still lurks in the deep,” said University of Georgia marine scientist Chuck Hopkinson. He headed the quick independent look by the Georgia Sea Grant program at the estimates the White House released.
“The bottom line is most of it is still out there. There’s nothing in the report to substantiate the 26 percent.”
Laboratory tests on seafood from the gulf have shown little hazard from oil.
