Oil Spill Jobs Info

Crazy, delicious food at Felix's
Photo: AP

Will the oil spill jobs be able to save delicious Gulf oysters for places like Felix’s (pictured here) in New Orleans and the Tens of Thousands of places like them in southeast Louisiana?

The answer is obviously:  I don’t know.  And nobody else does either.

But just to get a little more idea what we’re dealing with, and how the oil spill workers would be essential in cleaning the area where the oysters are cultivated, take a look at this map of the oyster beds:

Louisiana Oyster Beds (In Red)
Map Credit: Attribution Not Found

As you can see, the oyster beds are highlighted in red.  Now, there is oyster cultivation going on in all the states surrounding the Gulf of Mexico, but Louisiana – by several orders of magnitude – has the biggest and most active area of operation for oyster farming.

These waters are mainly saltwater wetlands taking up a good half of the coastline of Louisiana.  These areas were undoubtedly the hardest hit by spilled oil from the Deepwater Horizon BP oil disaster.

Fortunately, Louisiana has been a hot spot for oil spill job hiring, and there are a lot of ready and willing people to do the job of making these hardest hit coastal marshes clean again.

Now, how much work is required by the oil spill job holders?  Who knows?!?  There will be regular oil spill cleanup of contaminated beaches.  Barrier islands will also be getting the “standard service” by the oil spill jobbers.  But then what?

The oysters are filter-feeders.  They strain their food (mainly plankton) and nutrients directly out of the sea water.  An oyster will typically filter a little more than a gallon of water per hour.  That’s a lot for such a little, bitty creature!  They also concentrate whatever is in or dissolved in the water into their tissues.  Therein lies the main problem, and biggest challenge to the oil spill workers and their supervisors that direct their activities.

Even after the visible oil is cleaned from the ground and plants surrounding the coasts, the oysters are still going to be “filtering and concentrating” all nutrients and ALL CONTAMINANTS that pass through them.  How is the fact that oil dispersant (Corexit 9500) has broken the oil down into unnaturally small particles – and the dispersant’s own toxic-gunkicity.  Yuck city.

Maybe the miraculous microbial bacterial brew that’s “eating up all the oil” will come in and save the day.  Then, we’ll be back to “oysters on the half shell” lickity-split!  I’m not counting on that, though.  I’m counting on the dedication of people like yourself, getting hired for an oil spill job, and saving the day.  A small-scale Superman or Superwoman!

P.S.  I like my raw oysters with cocktail sauce that’s made with double the horseradish as usual. Fyre-sters!  Yum-city.

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