A pair of fishermen in Mississippi made an alarming discovery that has many wondering what's happening below the surface in the Gulf of Mexico. They found several full-sized crabs filled with some sort of black substance.
While it's tough to find oil on the surface along the beaches in Mississippi, Hancock County EMA director, Brian Adam said oil is there, you just can't see it.
"We're still seeing tar balls everyday, and I'm not talking just a few tar balls. We're seeing a good amount everyday on the beaches," said Adam.
He said a rock jetty near Waveland was covered in about 1,000 pounds of tar balls in just three days, and now there's been a disturbing discovery inside about a half a dozen full-sized crabs found near the mouth of Bay St. Louis.
"You could tell it was real slick and dark in color so I grabbed it, and opened the back of the crab, and you could see in the 'dead man' or the lungs of the crabs.. you could see the black," said Keith Ladner, longtime seafood supplier and owner of Gulf Shores Sea Products.
He said he's never seen anything like it. Ladner said a crab's lungs are normally a white, or greyish color, and that a crab would have to be extremely old and deteriorated to look the way these did. Ladner said, "it wasn't that case. The meat was in tact, but lungs were in bad shape."
Through BP's Vessels of Opportunity program, longtime fisherman Robert Mayne, a few days ago, started pulling boom on the bottom, and believes that's where the damaged crabs are coming from. He said, "we would slow down, let it (boom) go to the bottom and then 10 minute pulls that we had made.. it was just saturated with brown, solid brown substances."
FOX 8 News reporter, Shelley Brown asked, "and this is where the crabs live, on the bottom?" "Correct," answered Ladner and Mayne. Ladner said, "and it's shocking to me that the shrimp season opened just a week ago and these shrimp travel across the bottom like crabs."
Ladner said he couldn't sell shrimp even if they wanted too. He said some of the largest processing facilities in the country say they just can't buy from him right now because they say the sentiment around the country is that this oil and dispersant mix is at the bottom and in our seafood.
Hancock County Hazmat lead liaison, Jesse Fineran said, "we've seen a lot of large fish since this has happened that are dead on the beach. We're seeing large bones like on days that are low tides like tonight.. mammals, turtle bones."
Emergency managers and fishermen want to know what's causing this, and they're hoping just because there's no oil on the surface, this doesn't become an out of sight, out of mind situation.
Some fishermen said they would see oil on the surface one day, and the next day, crews were out spraying and it would be gone. They believe the oil and dispersant mix is accumulating on the bottom.
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