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Fish Kills Worry Gulf Scientists, Fishers, Environmentalists By Dahr Jamail OCEAN SPRINGS, Mississippi, U.S., Aug 26, 2010 (IPS) - Another massive fish kill, this time in Louisiana, has alarmed
scientists, fishers and environmentalists who believe they are
caused by oil and dispersants.
On Aug. 22, St. Bernard Parish authorities reported a huge
fish kill at the mouth of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet.
"By our estimates there were thousands - and I'm talking
about 5,000 to 15,000 - dead fish," St. Bernard Parish
President Craig Taffaro told reporters. "Different species
were found dead, including crabs, sting rays, eel, drum,
speckled trout, red fish, you name it, included in that
kill."
The next day, a thick, orange substance with tar balls and a
"strong diesel smell" was discovered around Grassy Island,
near the fish kill, according to a news release.
Taffaro admitted that there was oil in the area, but
cautioned against assuming it was the cause of the fish
kill.
Dr. Ed Cake, a biological oceanographer, as well as a marine
and oyster biologist, has "great concern" about this fish
kill, and many others in recent weeks, which he feels are
likely directly related to the BP oil disaster.
"As a scientist, my belief is that this fish kill is 75
percent likely due to hypoxic conditions, not enough oxygen
in the water to sustain life," Dr. Cake said. "Because it
was both bottom dwelling fish and crab, and other fish from
the middle of the water column, whatever caused this covered
the entire water column. That gives me great concern. The
scientist in me says there was some other triggering
mechanism."
Dr. Cake believes the "triggering mechanism" is likely oil
and toxic dispersants from the BP oil disaster.
Recent weeks have seen other huge fish kills. One occurred
in Mississippi from Long Beach to Pass Christian, and
another at Cat Island. The kill earlier this week in East
St. Bernard Parish is of note, because taken in the context
of the other two, all of these areas share the same body of
water – that which comprises both of the Mississippi and
Chandeleur Sounds.
On Aug. 18, a team from Georgia Sea Grant and the University
of Georgia released a report that estimates that 70 to 79
percent of the oil that gushed from the well "has not been
recovered and remains a threat to the ecosystem".
Nevertheless, regarding the St. Bernard Parish fish kill,
the head fisheries biologist for the state of Louisiana,
Randy Pausina, blamed it solely on hypoxic conditions caused
by extreme heat mixed with nutrient-rich waters.
But Dr. Cake, along with commercial fishermen and Gulf Coast
environmentalists, are drawing direct parallels to BP's oil
disaster and the use of toxic dispersants as the likely
cause of the increased numbers of fish kills they are
witnessing.
"There are several parallels to the spill," Dr. Cake added.
"We have evidence from fisherman operating in the VOO
[Vessels of Opportunity] fleet and fishermen in the area who
observed the spraying of dispersants by both aircraft and
vessels in the immediate vicinity of the fish kills. Therein
lies one triggering mechanism."
He said another factor is that dispersed oil "provides
nutrients for phytoplankton, and this may have triggered a
bloom of plankton, otherwise known as a red tide, and you
would then have a fish kill from the red tide organisms. I
understand that the phytoplankton out there is causing fish
kills, but still the triggering mechanism is the presence of
the oil and dispersants."
"A fish kill from a red tide, as I've observed, causes fish
to come to the surface to be in distress, flopping around,
and slowly they die, and new ones come up. This was not
observed in any of these kills. All we had was a massive
amount of dead fish coming to the surface," he said.
Two commercial fishermen in Mississippi who worked in BP's
VOO programme, James Miller and Mark Stewart, recently told
IPS they were eyewitnesses to BP spraying dispersants via
airplane and from boats into areas of the Mississippi Sound,
as well as outside the barrier islands.
"Right now there's barely any shrimp out there to catch,"
David Wallis, a fisherman from Biloxi, told IPS. "We should
be overloaded with shrimp right now. That's not normal. I
won't eat any seafood that comes out of these waters,
because it's not safe."
Chasidy Hobbs, with Emerald Coastkeeper in Pensacola,
Florida, is on the City of Pensacola Environmental Advisory
Board and directs the environmental litigation research
firm, Geography and Environment.
Hobbs recently informed IPS of a one mile-long fish kill on
Aug. 20 near Pensacola, and said of the BP oil disaster and
ongoing use of dispersants, "We're poisoning the entire Gulf
of Mexico food web. It's criminal."
"There are two theories on what is causing these fish
kills," Jonathan Henderson, with the Gulf Restoration
Network, told IPS. "Hypoxia and the BP disaster. Whichever
is the cause, they are both still bad."
Henderson has logged hundreds of hours in boats and planes
across the Gulf documenting the oil disaster. He has seen
fish kills himself.
"A few weeks ago at Pass Christian, I saw flounder, trout,
and crabs, washed up into the rock barriers in front of the
marina," he said.
The growing dead zone in the Gulf, which scientists believe
will be the size of Massachusetts this year, is now already
extremely close to shore.
"The fact that the dead zone is this close to shore is
alarming to me," Henderson said, "And we don't know the
effect the dispersants are having on the dead zones and it
very well may be that they are making it worse."
According to the EPA's latest analysis of dispersant
toxicity released in the document 'Comparative Toxicity of
Eight Oil Dispersant Products on Two Gulf of Mexico Aquatic
Test Species', Corexit 9500, along with 9527 - BP's two
dispersants used in the Gulf - "at a concentration of 42
parts per million, killed 50 percent of mysid shrimp
tested." Most of the remaining shrimp died shortly
thereafter.
"Local fisherman in Alabama report sighting tremendous
numbers of dolphins, sharks, and fish moving in towards
shore as the initial waves of oil and dispersant approached
in June," Environmentalist Jerry Cope wrote recently. "Many
third- and fourth-generation fishermen declared emphatically
that they had never seen or heard of any similar event in
the past. Scores of animals were fleeing the leading edge of
toxic dispersant mixed with oil. The Gulf of Mexico from the
Source into the shore is a giant kill zone."
"I was amongst all these dead fish in St. Bernard Parish,"
Dr. Cake added, "And there were off-bottom fish there as
well, which was the same thing we had at the fish kills at
Cat Island and Long Beach-Pass Christian, so I see a trend
here. Prior to the BP oil spill and the widespread
applications of dispersants in all three of these recent
fish-kill areas, we have never had evidence of such
widespread kills."
(END)
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