Good news for Gulf fishermen as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reopens one third of the BP oil spill area that was closed to fishing.According to NOAA 26,388 square miles will be reopened to Gulf fisherman. 
The NOAA, Gulf States, and US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) all agreed to reopen the Gulf to fishing after following set protocols. The U.S. Coast Guard has been doing fly-overs for the past thirty days and has seen no traces of oil on the surface. Scientific models also show the trajectory of the existing oil contamination moving away from the area. Plus, NOAA has caught fish from the area and tested them. The results showed no sign of contamination. NOAA had originally banned fishing in as much as 37 percent of the entire Gulf of Mexico. With the recent reopening, there still remains 57,539 square miles of the Gulf still closed off. NOAA will continue to test the fish and have set up dockside tests for commercial catches from the reopened area to ensure quality. They will also continue to monitor the closed-off areas, and open them back up to fishermen as soon as they are deemed safe. According to the EPA, the Gulf’s commercial fish and shellfish harvest is roughly 1.3 billion pounds and was worth approximately $661 million in 2008. The shrimp harvest alone is 188.8 million pounds, worth about $367 million per year. These totals have been significantly reduced due to the BP Deepwater Horizon rig disaster. The only question I would raise – does the testing being done by NOAA extend to lower depths of the waters that have been reopened? I would like to hear about those results as well prior to ordering off of the menu of Gulf seafood.
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