November 04, 2005 Louisiana Reopens All Oyster Beds

BATON ROUGE, Nov 04, 2005 - The Department of Health has announced the reopening of the final oyster harvest area that was closed on Tuesday, Aug. 30 because of Hurricane Katrina. This marks the reopening of all oyster harvest areas in Louisiana.

Oyster harvesting can resume in Harvest Area 2, which is located in St. Bernard Parish, at official sunrise, on Saturday, November 5. All other harvest areas were reopened in prior weeks. LDH conducted chemical and microbiological testing of the water and oysters in all harvest areas following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and all met the necessary reopening criteria.

A map of oyster harvesting areas in the state of Louisiana is available here.

Water standards for oyster harvesting areas are set by the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference and can be found at http://www.issc.org.  LDH has the authority to open and close these waters under LSA-R.S. 40:5,3.  

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