Gulf oil spill recovery money intended for testing to ensure fish caught off Louisiana’s coast were safe for consumers instead paid for unnecessary iPads, cameras, boats and now-missing fishing equipment, say state auditors, who characterized the safety program as so mismanaged it couldn’t even declare if the catch was fit to eat.
BP gave Louisiana millions of dollars for the program aimed at restoring confidence in the state’s multibillion-dollar seafood industry after a massive oil spill fouled the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. But as The Associated Press reports, auditors say they believe hundreds of thousands of dollars were misspent.
In a new report, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor’s Office says it found “insufficient sampling of fish for contamination from the oil spill, excessive costs and missing property” in part of the $10.5 million BP-financed seafood safety program overseen by the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in the years after the spill.
A preliminary draft of the auditor’s report, which hasn’t been released publicly, was obtained by The Associated Press.
Nearly a third of the domestic seafood in the continental U.S. comes from Louisiana, according to the state seafood board, and the industry has a $2.4 billion state economic impact and employs tens of thousands. But the catastrophic April 2010 oil spill raised contamination concerns, provoking testing to reassure consumers the seafood was safe.
Wildlife and Fisheries received $10.5 million from BP over three years for a seafood testing program, in a contract that required the agency to test different types of finfish and shellfish for oil contamination.
According to the audit, less than half the tissue samples needed from fish like tuna, mackerel, snapper and grouper were collected. A biologist wasn’t always present for the sampling, auditors say, and seafood tissue samples sat for days—and sometimes weeks—before being submitted.
The draft audit didn’t raise concerns about other testing done on shrimp, oysters and sediment. But auditors took issue with the portion of fish collections based in Venice, at the southeastern tip of boot-shaped Louisiana.
Beyond problems with the seafood safety program, the auditors say they found widespread financial issues across the Department of Wildlife and Fisheries: questionable purchases, free-wheeling spending with little oversight, and missing fishing equipment, drones, guns and other items that belong to the state. And it said the department’s management and employees may have violated the agency contract with BP “and state law” in the fish testing program.
The audit report scrutinized agency management from 2010 through 2015 when Bobby Jindal was Louisiana’s governor and Robert Barham was secretary of the agency. In January, John Bel Edwards succeeded Jindal as governor, naming Charlie Melancon as the department’s secretary.
Barham says he has seen the draft report and has been given until the end of next week to respond. He disputed some assertions made by the auditor’s office, but said he couldn’t yet provide specifics because of confidentiality rules involving draft audits.
“There are some factual errors in the audit findings, and we believe some conclusions are erroneous,” Barham said in a telephone interview.
