Officials with the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries said they hope to reopen fishing in interior marshlands east of the Mississippi River that have been closed since April 30 by the BP oil spill in the Gulf od Mexico.
"We are examining the possibility of re-opening some of the deep marsh areas," said Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. "We're working right now to develop a testing protocol that will allow this to happen as soon as possible."
The closure was originally ordered on the advice of the state Department of Health and Hospitals and the Department of Environmental Quality based on NOAA projections that the surface spill would move into that estuary by the weekend of May 1-2, Barham said.
Ultimately light sheens and some heavier oil was spotted in the outer sounds fronting the Gulf of Mexico, but no surface pollution was ever verified within the marshes, nor have samplings of water, fish and wildlife turned up any contamination, state officials said.
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Photo by Carlos Barria, Reuters