We Asked an Expert: Is Gulf Seafood Safe to Eat?

With all the oil that's spewing into the Gulf every day, it's only natural for consumers to express concern over seafood's safety. Change.org caught up with Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), to discuss just that. Solomon is the associate director of the University of California, San Francisco's pediatric environmental health specialty unit. She's also a co-author of the award-winning book, Generations at Risk: Reproductive Health and the Environment. Here's her lowdown on how oil may be impacting the Gulf's fish, oysters, crabs, shrimp, and other marine critters:

A lot of media outlets tout that to save Gulf seafood, we must eat it. Is that even safe at this point?

There’s a need for much more transparency about exactly what’s being done by federal and state agencies to ensure the safety of Gulf seafood. At this point I really haven’t seen enough data to make an argument either way. I’m prepared to be reassured, but I also want to see the data.

What kinds of tests should be done to ensure safety? Is a sniff test enough?

A test like the sniff test should be backed up with organic chemistry sampling to measure for hydrocarbons. Over time, there will be a need to test for PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). These are cancer-causing chemicals in crude oil and can be taken in through fish and shellfish. And then in the even longer term, there’s going to be a need to test for heavy metals. Heavy metals are trace contaminants in the crude oil, but they bioaccumulate up the food chain. Larger, predator fish could potentially pick up a significant amount of heavy metals from the oil contaminants, and mercury and lead are toxic to the brain and nervous sysetm.

How long do we need to be vigilant in monitoring Gulf seafood?

Levels of some of these chemicals will paradoxically increase through the food chain over time—we could see worse problems with food safety several years from now. Right now in many areas, fish and shellfish are grossly contaminated. Over time, those contaminants will settle into sediments and then make their way into the food chain. They will start to bioaccumulate. Right at the time when the Gulf starts to look better might be the biggest danger time. There’s going to be pressure to reopen Gulf fisheries for economic reasons, but any reopening needs to be backed up by clear data. It’s going to be easy when the fish doesn’t stink of oil anymore to assume it’s safe, and that would be a big mistake.

Should we worry about dispersants?

Dispersants try to save marshes and birds from surface oil slicks by literally just sweeping the problem under the surface of the Gulf. There it can potentially have a greater effect on fish in deeper waters, so it’s trading one set of problems for another. Dispersants aren’t cleaning up anything—they’re just moving the oil around. Data came out recently that indicates that the combination of oil and dispersant is actually far more toxic to aquatic species than the oil alone or the dispersant alone.

Any advice for consumers?

The biggest risks are to pregnant women, women who are planning to get pregnant soon, and to young kids because their bodies are still developing. Those are the people who need to be most careful with choosing the fish they eat. Switching to imported seafood from Asia is not necessarily better. In fact, it could be worse because there’s an enormous amount of industrial contamination affecting many of the areas there.

For the moment I have not changed my seafood habits. I try to choose fish that are low in mercury and harvested sustainably. The NRDC and Monterey Bay Aquarium have great guides on those species, and those are still good rules of thumb. I’m still buying and eating Gulf shrimp and Gulf fish. There are still areas of the Gulf that haven't been hit, and I know too much about how important fishing is to the livelihood of Gulf communities to make hasty decisions. I’m still looking for the data to reassure me that it’s totally safe, but I haven’t seen anything that makes me worry enough to stop buying it.

For more information on how the BP oil spill is impacting the Gulf's seafood industry and marine life, check out Change.org's "Toxic Soup" series here, here, here, here, and here.