Skeptics Wary of Seafood Safety as Shrimping Season Opens in the Gulf

Aug. 16, 2010 — -- Shrimpers returned to Louisiana waters today for the first commercial season since the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster, after Texas Tech University scientists said Sunday that seafood tested in a lab showed no evidence of oil.

Already, hundreds of boats are out on the water as the U.S. government insists that Gulf seafood is safe to eat and lawmakers seek to allay fears over safety.

"Opening season is like a religion to these people," said Harlon Pearce, a seafood dealer and head of the state's seafood promotion board. "It's a way of life down here."

But some shrimpers, like Patrick Hue, 49, of Buras, La., aren't biting.

"It's a lot of oil at the bottom [of the sea that] people don't see," Hue said. "Out of sight, out of mind."

He didn't think the shrimping season should be opened until more testing is done -- and that if oil was found in the shrimp during the season, it would mean he'd been working for nothing.

"I wouldn't want to sell it. Personally, right now, I don't want to eat any seafood out of these waters," Hue said. "Millions of gallons of oil ran into the Gulf."

Watch "World News with Diane Sawyer" for the latest on the oil spill tonight on ABC.

If sold shrimp was found to be contaminated, he argued, it would ruin the Louisiana fishing industry's image, the seafood's reputation -- and the fishermen's livelihood.

"We are known as ... the best seafood in the world, not just shrimp -- crabs, fish, oysters," Hue said. "If we did that [sold contaminated seafood] and one person got sick, who do you think is going to take the downfall? ... It wouldn't take but one person to get sick to ruin our image."

Other fishermen shared his fear that trying to sell oil-contaminated shrimp would scare consumers away again.

"If you see oily shrimp, you got to throw them back over, go somewhere else. It's all you can do," said shrimper Dewayne Baham, 49, of Buras, La. "And you hope everyone else does the same."

Ravin Lacoste of Theriot, La., said he believed that fellow shrimpers knew better than to turn in a bad catch.

"We in enough trouble now with our shrimp," he said.