Franklin County Commissioners say they would like to get their hands on some of the 10 million dollars that BP is giving to the Florida Department of Agriculture to promote Florida seafood.
The money is part of a 20 million dollar payment from BP that will also pay for seafood inspections in an effort to restore public confidence in the safety of Gulf of Mexico seafood.
The money will come to Florida over the next three years, and the payments could be extended for an additional 3 years if state or federal waters contiguous to Florida have to be closed to seafood harvesting in the future because of lingering contaminants from the oil spill.
Gulf seafood sales as a whole are down because of concerns of the effects of the BP oil spill, though Florida seafood is selling better than seafood from other gulf states.
Dr. Steve Otwell from the University of Florida told commissioners that sales of Florida seafood is at an all-time high and he recommended that the county use the money to build market awareness of Apalachicola Bay Seafood and the strong reputation the area has for fresh, healthy seafood.
County commissioners say they don’t know how the Department of Agriculture plans to spend the advertising portion of the money, but they feel a local effort might be more effective.
The board said it will have the Tourist Development Council approach the Department of Agriculture try to get some of the BP money to use locally.
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