[/caption]METAIRIE - GHN INFO - The Deepwater Horizon Group sent this summation from Secretary Locke's report sent via External Affairs. The details give the picture about the government's take on the state of the Gulf Coast seafood.
The following summation was sent to Green Heritage News directly from Deepwater Horizon's external affairs as information from the public.
Making
his third visit to the Gulf of Mexico region since June, Commerce
Secretary Gary Locke toured a seafood processing plant this morning in
Lafitte, La., a fishing village about 25 miles south of New Orleans.
Michael Chan, manager of Lafitte Frozen Foods, said business is down about 80 percent because of the oil spill.
“We’ve
been getting shrimp from Texas, Mississippi, the Carolinas, and a
little bit from Alabama. But, hopefully, we’ll be getting it from
Louisiana in a few days,” Chan said, referring to this morning’s opening
of the first commercial shrimping season since the spill.
Locke took a 20-minute tour of the plant, where machines separated, peeled and washed shrimp from North Carolina and Texas.
“We
need to let the American people know that the seafood being harvested
from the Gulf is safe to eat,” Locke said. “I think there have been a
lot of misperceptions out there. A lot of testing is done before we open
state and federal waters to fishing. We’re being very thoughtful, very
careful and very deliberate.”
Locke stopped to chat with Doris Rojas, 65, who was plucking broken bits of shrimp from a conveyor belt.
“You don’t have any problem eating seafood from the Gulf, do you?” Locke asked.
“No, sir,” Rojas answered.
Rojas
said she has been averaging about 10 hours of work per week, down from
the 75 to 80 hours she said she normally works during the peak of
fishing season.
“Oh, sure. It’s no problem,” she said when questioned about her workload. “I’ve got to pay my bills.”
At one point, Locke stepped briefly into a walk-in blast freezer and emerged with his eye glasses frosted over.
“That’s why I had Lasik surgery,” an employee told Locke.
“Oh, that would be a good commercial,” Locke said, holding his glasses in his hand. “How long do they stay frozen?”
After
the tour, Locke met privately with company officials for about 15
minutes before leaving for Drago’s Seafood Restaurant in suburban
Metairie, where he was to have lunch with seafood industry
representatives and restaurant owners affected by the spill.
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