You Gonna’ Eat That? Government Reopens Thousands of Square Miles of Gulf for Shrimp Fishing With Limited Safety Testing

After the largest oil spill in U.S. history wiped out gulf seafood production for nearly half a year, the government has started reopening thousands of square miles to shrimping.

The problem, according to Dr. Gina Solomon, is that there has been either very limited testing or no testing at all to confirm that the food is free of oil related toxicity:

They reopened areas of thousands of square miles on the basis of five samples. That’s an area roughly the size of the State of Connecticut. And, yes, the entire area isn’t shrimp fishery, but a significant chunk of it is. And five samples, in my mind, it’s not enough. You have to gather enough samples, so that if there’s a hot zone out there, you want to be able to pick it up.

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I’m not sure, honestly, if there’s a serious problem with seafood safety or not, just because there’s not enough data to go on. It doesn’t show a problem, but it also doesn’t show that it’s safe. There needs to be a lot more testing and it needs to happen quickly.

Watch the Project Gulf Impact Interview with Dr. Solomon:

References: Deborah Dupre