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On Sunday thousands of fish, crabs and other on beaches surrounding Galveston Bay. The Texas Department of State Health Services has warned people not to eat any seafood from the area, and it in the bay indefinitely.
is chair for coastal conservation and restoration at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi鈥檚 Harte Research Institute, and says the dead sea life washed up after a ship carrying chemicals collided with a barge in the Houston Ship Channel, Friday. Those chemicals spilled into the channel and made their way into Galveston Bay.
Toxic chemicals, including a gasoline blend that contains benzene, likely spilled into the water, and Pollack says that鈥檚 a particular problem because of the bay's robust oyster-harvesting industry.
鈥淕alveston Bay is really the heart of oyster harvest in Texas,鈥� Pollack says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 the only bay in Texas where oyster harvesting happens year round.鈥�
Galveston oyster farms were the only ones still operating in Texas this time of year, but now that state officials have halted the harvest, those farms and local economies could suffer financial consequences.
Pollack says oyster farmers and others are awaiting results from tissue-sample tests that will determine the extent of the damage the spill has had on local sea life.
鈥淚t remains to be seen how long this closure will hold up depending on what those results look like,鈥� Pollack says.
She says state officials primarily want to determine how long it will be before it鈥檚 safe for local anglers, for example, to eat the fish they catch in the bay. She says the commercial oyster reefs, by contrast, are 鈥渞obust structures鈥� that can regenerate fairly quickly, even if many of the existing oysters inside their shells are dead from the spill.
鈥淭hose shells actually do form the building blocks for new, baby, larval oysters to attach themselves onto, and can help jump-start a new reef,鈥� Pollack says. 鈥淚f the shells are still in place, even if the oysters aren鈥檛 there, some of the ecological benefits hopefully will come back on track relatively quickly.鈥�
She says 鈥渜uickly鈥� could mean a few months, but that also depends on how long it takes for the chemicals to dissipate.
The oyster life cycle is short: Pollack says it takes 18-24 months for Texas oysters to grow from larvae into 3-inch, commercially viable oysters.
Written by Caroline Covington.
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