Hot Topics: Impact of the Oil Spill

During a drive with my father, I asked him if he had heard any buzz about food this week.  Nothing came to mind right away, so his strategy was to think of a large current event and brainstorm nutrition related issues caused by the event.  The first was the earthquakes in Haiti.  He wondered how the country was surviving months after the catastrophe.  We discussed whether farming was back on track or not.  Then I wondered if the calories provided from relief efforts were enough, too little, or too much.  This topic sounded too large to cover in one posting.  So the next topic was the oil spill on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.  My father was curious as to how this spill will effect our seafood economy in the United States.  I hadn’t considered this potential impact just yet and neither had my father, both of us big seafood fanatics.  So, what is happening or will happen?

If you were to scope out the area of the Gulf effected, there is a visible light sheen on the surface due to the millions of gallons of crude oil mixing in.  The numbers will continue to increase by 200,000 gallons a day until the leak is fixed.   Fishing, whether commercial or sport, has been stopped indefinitely.  No one should be eating anything that has been trying to survive in the gunk.  Fisherman that have been making a living in this area have stated, “We’ll still be fishing, we just need to redirect and fish somewhere else.” Competition may increase but could over-fishing become a problem?  Some fisherman are making permanent changes to their businesses and are looking for another place to call home.  This spill is going to have long term effects due to the unfortunate timing. It is currently the spawning season for many species.  The destruction of this year’s eggs will potentially cause a terrible fishing season in 2011 and 2012, even if everything does get cleaned up.

Although the impact of the oil spill on our seafood supply has not been visible just yet, it’s bound to happen.  Many believe that shellfish maybe be the first to feel the effects.  Just Louisiana alone supplies 30% of all the shrimp, crawfish, oysters, and crabs to the lower 48 states, and the collecting of these species has slowed down.  Restaurants in the area are already feeling some of the consumers panic. Days after the oil spill, Joe Patti’s Seafood Co. in Pensacola, Florida was swamped with customers who wanted to buy up and freeze locally caught fish for the fear that these products will be extinct for the next several months, perhaps years.  We can still get the fish we need to maintain menu items and stock fish markets, but we’ll need to receive them from other sources which will inevitably charge more because demand is so high.  Just as the summer seafood season is about to commence, seafood distributors are warning that seafood menu items all over the country will either jump in price or if prices get too high, they maybe completely eliminated from menus. Be ready to pay a bit more to enjoy your summer delights, especially if you drive there (Oil Spill = gas prices going up... gah!)