Though state waters in Escambia County had been closed to saltwater fishing for less than a day, some of the areas fishing-related businesses Monday afternoon were already fretting the loss of customers.
Today weve done about $20 in business, said Doug Vance, owner of Grays Tackle and Guide Service.
After President Barack Obama completes his tour of the oil-threatened Escambia region Tuesday -- part of a two-day visit to the affected Gulf states -- he will return to Washington to address an audience fed up with the slow response to the spill and the closure of more and more waters to commercial and recreational fishing industries.
Its just frustration, said Ray Boyer, general manager of Marias Fresh Seafood Market of Pensacola. You hear a little bit of frustration in my voice. You hear a little bit of anger, too.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissions ban on saltwater fish, shrimp and crabs in state waters, which began at 12:01 a.m. Monday, includes state waters from the beaches out nine nautical miles into the Gulf, from the Alabama line east to the Pensacola Beach water tower, according to the FWC.
Recreational catch-and-release fishing in state waters and commercial fishing in the bays and estuaries is still allowed. Harvesting of oysters, mussels and clams has also been exempted from the closure.
The commission also closed Perdido Pass and Pensacola Pass with the tides Monday to compensate for the oil.
Robert Howard, hunting manager for Outcast Fishing & Tackle in Pensacola, said only a few customers had frequented the shop by early Monday afternoon, an oddity in the busy near-shore snapper season.
Normally, during snapper season, it would be wall-to-wall customers, he said.
The closure of state waters is only one small burden added to a heap of impediments piled on the fishing industry. It has been 55 days since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, leased by British Petroleum, exploded, generating a spill that unleashes from 20,000 to 40,000 barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico daily.
The beaches of Florida are still open, but tar balls, tar patties and BP property have washed up on northwest Florida shores for more than a week. On Monday a light sheen, ribbons of weathered oil and tar balls were located within five miles of Pensacola Pass. A plume of weathered oil and a plume of non-weathered oil have been hovering miles offshore of northwest Florida.
The region has been battling the false conception that its beaches are closed and the food unfit to eat. And members of the tourism industry said constant, and sometimes inaccurate, press coverage of the oil spill has scared tourists and consumers away.
Were so mad at the media for making it worse, said one shopkeeper, who declined to be named. I have no comment.
A University of Central Florida economist estimated last week that the spill could cause the state to lose as much as 195,000 jobs and $10.9 billion in state spending if half the tourism jobs in 23 counties were lost. The state would lose 39,000 jobs and $2.2 million in state spending if only 10 percent of tourism jobs were lost.
Obama, under severe pressure for the federal government to get a better handle on the spill, has called for BP to start an escrow fund for government oil-spill response, a call that has also come from Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum and others. BP, which claims its oil spill response has cost $1.6 billion so far, said Tuesday it will try to up its oil containment from 630,000 gallons to 2.1 million.
Boyer, the general manager at Marias Fresh Seafood, said that the increasing closure of waters (32 percent of federal waters in the Gulf have been closed to commercial fishing) means the price of seafood has doubled in some cases.
Fishermen are also being pressed into service to help in BPs oil-spill response efforts, and oyster harvesters can earn more working with the oil giant than they can bringing in a catch to markets like Marias, Boyer said.
Most of the seafood offered by Marias comes fresh from the Gulf, but Boyer is going to have to resort increasingly to harvests from South America and elsewhere as the oil spreads.
Its going to be like 'Paradise Lost' in our backyard, he said.
Reach Alex Tiegen at (561) 329-5389 or Alex.Tiegen@gmail.com
