TRENDS IN RESCINDING SEAFOOD HARVEST CLOSURESFOLLOWING OIL SPILLS

摘要

In the past 5 years, there have been numerouscases of seafood harvest closures following oil spills in theUnited States. This paper examines seven oil spills and themethods and criteria used for closing fisheries and subsequentlyrescinding seafood harvesting restrictions. In examining thesecases, each respective state has assumed the lead.In general, individual states often have little to no experiencein dealing with reopening a fishery due to an oil spill. Concernsinclude health risk to consumers and tainting of product thatcould reach the market and a loss in market confidence. Keytechnical issues that are uniform throughout many of the casesexamined are: variability of acceptable benzo[a]pyrene equivalentswith each spill; a slow reopening process because ofcontinued lack of national standards and criteria; a desire foreach state to develop their own criteria which may or may not bebased on prior experience of other states in other oil spills;expanded scope of sampling programs in space, magnitude, andduration despite the lack of findings of spill-related health risksto seafood in previous spills; continued scrutiny of nonhydrocarbonchemical contaminants in the spilled material; andnon-oil spill related failures of either health or marketabilitycriteria that often do not result in the continued closure of thefishery. Several recent cases have benefited from past experienceand offer alternatives to previous fishery closure and reopeningstrategies. This report will compare and contrast many of theparameters required for reopening of fisheries, including humanhealth risk variables, inclusion or exclusion of alkylatedhomologs of PAHs, benzo[a]pyrene (BAP) equivalents, andcontaminants of concern.