The U.S. is putting new rules on commercial fishing of bluefin tuna in the Gulf of Mexico and parts of the Western Atlantic known to be breeding grounds. Giant bluefin tuna over 81 inches long will be protected under a new 750 page National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration amendment in an effort to rebuild the population.

“NOAA Fisheries deserves great praise for significantly increasing protections for bluefin while allowing fishing for yellowfin tuna and swordfish to continue,” said Lee Crockett, director of U.S. ocean conservation for The Pew Charitable Trusts. “This historic action will help western Atlantic bluefin tuna rebuild to healthy levels.”

The amendment deals directly with surface longlines. The longlines average 30 miles long and use hundreds of baited hooks left unattended for 18 hours at a time. As a result, countless marine species get caught and die including bluefin tuna, hammerhead sharks, and leatherback sea turtles. It’s a sad practice that wastes  445,338 pounds of bluefin tuna, more than before a U.S. ban on targeting the massive species went into effect in 1982.

These new guidelines seek to change all that by restricting the use of surface longline fishing in certain parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Cape Hatteras. It also establishes a new annual limit on incidental catch and says that the use of longlines must be monitored 100 percent of the time.

According to NOAA:

Under these proposed measures, fishermen will have a strong incentive to avoid catching bluefin tuna incidentally when pursuing swordfish and other Atlantic tunas, since bluefin tuna catch (landings and dead discards) are proposed to be counted against individual longline vessels. Reaching the bluefin quota could result in prohibition of further longline fishing.

Western bluefin tuna weigh upwards of 550 pounds and can reach more than 6 feet in length. They are also particularly valuable on the commercial market which makes them subject to unreported and illegal fishing. But NOAA has yet to list them as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

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“So all the dispersants are gone,”  I ask.

“Yes,” says John from NOAA.

“So, again, at this point it would be a scientific impossibility for them to persist, given their volatile nature?”

“Yes, maybe a few ‘in between compounds’, but yes, pretty much they should be entirely gone.”

Based on simple chemistry, if BP did in fact quit using dispersants as of July 15th (which the company is on the record saying), the compounds have to be gone. I press.

“So, the only way that they could be out there is if BP is doing this on the sly, as some fisherman have argued.”

Crickets. I let it go. With the helicopter noise, they can feign ‘selective hearing.’ But, I’ve already arrived at the answer to my own question. I don’t believe these NOAA folks are spinning me, I believe that they believe what they’re telling me.

I turn the discussion towards a need for independent sources that will corroborate claims about the efficiency of the microbes eating up all this dispersed oil. Nicolle Rutherford, the NOAA biologist, keeps pointing me to Dr. Terry Hazen’s work. I look at it. Sure enough, it says mostly what she insists it will.

But guess who paid for the study? To the tune of $500 million? To be fair, it seems that only industry on earth that would commission a study on oil eating microbes is the oil industry. But it still smells fishy to me. I want something totally independent.

The drone of the helicopter blades and the pressurized air is making me sleepy. We’re now out over the open ocean and the delta mud color is replaced by blue. There isn’t much to see, just a few gentle white caps on the surface of the water. I had expected this ride to be more dramatic, a little more unsteady. It’s so stable it’s kind of boring.

Then, we arrive. And no one announces it. This, to me, is exceptionally bizarre. Eleven men were killed here and there is no elegy, no admission that tragedy struck here, nary a mention. All we’re here to see is “exceptional progress.” The copter stays way, way off the site as we circle it. I’ve got a 300mm lens on a high resolution camera, and still I can’t make out the words on the relief well platforms. Why are we so far away? It bugs me, but the distance is obviously intentional.

Besides the three relief wells, I count 27 other “things” (boats, barges) in the water. I ask the BP guy what all these other boats are doing.

“Oh, these are vessels engaged in facilitating the incident response effort,” he says.

“Can I quote you on that?” I ask.

“Of course,” he says, obviously not picking up on the dripping sarcasm in my voice. Engaged in facilitating the incident response effort. This is the best thing I’ve heard on the trip so far by a factor of ten. Man, seriously? I’m watching the other reporters write this drivel down. Seriously? None of the journos seems to think this is as absurd as I do, save for one guy from The Hartford.  Another asks, where is the Deep Water Horizon?

Back on land, we have a chance to talk to the NOAA folks in a waiting room area. They’re good people. One in the group actually cries because she’s so upset about how poor the messaging has been from NOAA. She believes it is at the root of all the fear and distrust that’s been caused amongst the communities all over the Gulf Coast. Her tears are genuine, but I want to tell her it’s way more complicated than just the failure of her own agency. Nicolle (her name) is not a spin doctor, she’s a doctor doctor, of biology. As such, she’s not necessarily looking to investigate her own agency, and no one working here has gone without media training.

When we first arrived, the NOAA folks showed us samples taken of the ocean at various sites showing that it contained a lower concentration of oil than a comparison sample comprised of a bit of dust off the side of the freeway in the same volume of water. It’s a gimmick that says, “look, the side of the road is more toxic than the Gulf.” Those kinds of gimmicks offend thinking people.

Clarity and truth. It’s what I’ve asked for everywhere I go down here. But the more I learn, the more I believe that clarity, truth and justice are not things we’re going to see in this region for years, maybe decades. Damn it.

Editor’s note: Travel editor Stiv Wilson is reporting exclusively from the Gulf of Mexico this month. Read Part 1 of this story, and all of his dispatches, here.

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We wake up in Mobile, Alabama, early, and head for Houma, Louisiana. We’ve arranged to get on a BP-sponsored helicopter flight over the Louisiana bayou and head offshore some 60 miles to the site where this whole thing started, where many oilmen died in an explosion. I’m with an activist from the Audubon Society and we’re driving well over 90 to get there on time. With us will be two NOAA scientists, one a biologist, one a geophysicist/oceanographer.

BP runs these sorties for media and has been for several months. The helicopter has 15 seats. I’m excited, not because I get to ride in a helicopter, but because I get nearly three hours to drill the BP guy and the scientists. Already seated are reporters from several major outlets, one, an NPR journalist trying to get good audio in a helicopter. Every time I ask a question, she turns her mic on. I’m doing her job for her.

Taking off, I ask the BP guy about the flight plan for our route. He doesn’t understand what I mean. Who chose it? I’m wondering if we’re seeing what’s really out here or if we’re seeing what they want us to see. He remarks that the journos choose the route, but what he means is they choose the destination. How we get there is up to BP and we’re not flying as the crow does. This is theater.

I take pictures of the wetlands, boom, slick, and some oiled beaches. The NOAA scientists champion the fact that of 77,000 miles of shoreline, only 600 are affected by oil. I don’t know what to do with this statistic. It sounds like an impressive ratio; then again, 600 miles is the entire collective coastline of Oregon and Washington State.

To get an accurate picture of this place you’d need to fly the same route every few days to see what is changing, not what it looks like in one isolated moment. Nonetheless, the photogs start clicking away whenever we come across “incriminating” pictures. But no one is asking questions and it’s driving me absolutely insane. How on earth can any good reporter pass up an opportunity like this?

I strategically place myself next to the BP employee and the scientists. I have a list and I’m going to get answers. The NOAA folks are cooperative, at times emotional. The BP employee is as cool as a cucumber; moreover, he doesn’t seem to know much. Every time I ask him a question he says, “I have all that information back on land, I’ll get back to you on that.”

Dispersants – this is what I want to know about. Specifically Corexit 9500 and 9527 (the ones used). This stuff is toxic as hell if it comes into acute contact with an animal. The effects of chronic, or low-level exposure aren’t known and that’s at the root of the fear that permeates the fishing community.

I talk to John Whitney, a NOAA Oceanographer who worked on the Exxon Valdez disaster. He gives me a crash chemistry lesson. Corexit is an extremely volatile compound. What this means is that it biodegrades very quickly – it has a half life of three to four days, which means after a few weeks it’s entirely gone, reduced to water and carbon dioxide. There are other volatile compounds produced in the degradation process, but no one can name one other than benzine. But it’s the middle of August now. If BP quit using dispersants on July 15th as they say they did, then it’s gone.

Entirely.

The dispersed oil remains, however, and the toxic poly aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) will persist, and not only on the surface.  They’re stratified in the water column. PAHs are bad. Real bad. Having them dispersed isn’t a good thing either, especially when you have plumes from the surface leading way, way down. Dispersed means more surface area and more surface area means more biomass comes into contact with it. But NOAA is very rosy (like a dozen, red) on this subject, citing their report that states 75% of the oil is gone – dissolved and gobbled up by microbes. Dissolved? I wouldn’t drink it.

They show me charts reflecting findings that the toxicity isn’t anything to worry about. But only two days prior to this, I was in D’iberville, Mississippi, looking at Flipcam footage shot by fisherman showing beyond a shadow of doubt that oil plume persists in Mississippi Sound. I only get them on the record saying that it’s all “mostly” gone or in such low concentrations that it doesn’t matter. It matters, all right.

Editor’s note: Travel editor Stiv Wilson is reporting exclusively from the Gulf of Mexico this month. Read all of his dispatches here.

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