New Orleans aquarium denied FEMA funding

Followed FEMA directions
About a dozen aquarium staffers went fishing, snorkeling and scuba diving between January and May 2006, catching tiny highhat fish, yellowtail snapper, jackfish and others. The staffers worked 12-hour days but put in for only eight hours a day, according to invoices.

The catch was placed in a 1,000-gallon tank fitted to a flatbed trailer for the trip to New Orleans. TV crews and a local newspaper reporter tagged along on some trips but paid their own bills.

Most of the fish were caught in Florida waters for one-fifth the price charged by online vendors and specialty stores — suppliers FEMA recommended using.

"That is exactly the most prudent way to do it," Steve Feldman, spokesman for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, said of the fishing trip.

The aquarium also received donations from other institutions, including stingrays from Sea World in Orlando, Fla.

With the aquarium's 900,000 annual visitors a linchpin of the city's tourism-dependent economy, the state asked FEMA in May 2006 for rebuilding help for the private institution even though the fish had already been caught. It is not unusual for the state to ask for assistance after a project has been completed.

Most of aquarium staff laid off
The fish were put on display in mid-2006 and have proved to be healthy. But the aquarium had to lay off 80 percent of its workers after Katrina and attendance is only 70 percent of what it was before the storm, spokeswoman Melissa Lee said.

"When those numbers drop, the revenue drops," she said. "That's money that could go to feeding animals and increasing staff. That's money we need back from FEMA."

The firm mediating the dispute has pressed on with its effort to secure FEMA help, arguing that salmon hatcheries in Oregon and lab rats in Texas were replaced with FEMA money after disasters hit there in 1994 and 2001.

The New Orleans case has been appealed to FEMA offices in Texas and Washington. The dispute could wind up in federal court.

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