Fish Still Deformed from BP OIl Spill

Two years after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexio–in the worst offshore spill in US history–deformed fish and eyeless shrimp are still being found (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to these shows).

The release of at least 4.9 million barrels of oil was followed by the use of at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic Corexit dispersants to sink the oil. At least 50% of the shrimp caught in that period in the popular shrimping area of Barataria Bay that was heavily impacted by BP’s oil, are eyeless, and most of them are covered with abnormal growths, as well.

And a large number of kids in the area are chronically ill as well. While it’s hard to link childhood allergies and illness to any one event, the number of sick kids in the area rose dramatically after the BP spill.

In Al-Jazeera, Dahr Jamail quotes shrimper Tracy Kuhns as saying, "Disturbingly, not only do the shrimp lack eyes, they even lack eye sockets. At the height of the last white shrimp season, in September, one of our friends caught 400 pounds of these. Some shrimpers are catching these in Alabama and Mississippi (as well). We are also finding eyeless crabs, crabs with their shells soft instead of hard, full grown crabs that are one-fifth their normal size, clawless crabs, and crabs with shells that don’t have their usual spikes–they look like they’ve been burned off by chemicals."

Consumers have been assured that these fish are safe to eat, but we would recommend that you not buy deformed fish of any kind–and they’ll be easy to spot. Jamail quotes Cowan as saying, "We are up against social and economic challenges that hamper our ability to get our information out, so the politics have been as daunting as the problem (we are studying) itself. But my funding is not coming from a source that requires me to be quiet."

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