[StBernard] St. Bernard officials call for investigation into dead crabs in Lake Borgne

[Westley Annis]

St. Bernard officials call for investigation into dead crabs in Lake Borgne

wwltv.com

Posted on August 23, 2011 at 6:28 PM

Updated yesterday at 6:42 PM

Maya Rodriguez / Eyewitness News

LAKE BORGNE, La.-- It's been a costly few days on the water for Bruce
Guerra.

"Yesterday, [I lost] in between $800 and $1000," he said.

The Yscloskey crabber said he is losing money because of dead crabs, being
pulled from his crab traps in Lake Borgne.

"That's terrible," he said, as he surveyed several of his traps, which
contained dead crabs.

Guerra is not the only one: several crabbers in Lake Borgne tell Eyewitness
News that their traps also contained a number of dead crabs in the past few
days.

"It's affecting a lot of people's livelihoods-- you're looking at 300-400
fishermen utilize this lake and this estuary," said St. Bernard Parish
Councilman Fred Everhardt, who represents the area.

Everhardt said multiple calls and reports caused him to get involved,
especially he said because of where the reports were coming from: an area of
Lake Borgne, which the Pearl River empties into. That's casting suspicion on
the cause, in light of the paper mill discharge last week in Washington
Parish, which led to a major fish kill on the river there.

"It's just a coincidence-- we're so close to the Pearl [River], with the
wind and the current direction, that water, that chemical, whatever was
dispersed in the Pearl, is coming this way," Everhardt said.

The dead crabs are just the latest setback for a fishing community which has
seen it's share of problems over the years, from Hurricane Katrina, to the
BP oil spill, to fresh water diversions from the Mississippi River.

In this case, though, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality said
it is too soon to lay blame.

"What we're seeing is the dissolved oxygen potential in those areas is on
the upswing," said Jeff Dauzat with the DEQ. "So, we really have not seen
anything that would indicate that that particular discharge would still be
killing fish in that area."

Some, though, are now asking for proof of that.

"Let's test the water," Everhardt said.

The DEQ said they have had a report coming out of nearby Lake Catherine
about dead crabs. They are urging those who find dead crabs in their traps
to report them to the DEQ hotline at (225) 342-1234.