KEY TAKEAWAYS: Roughly 616 of 750 barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf have been recovered. Spill occurred 18 miles off Port Fourchon, Louisiana, from a mechanical platform malfunction. 464 personnel, 60 boats, and 28,300 feet of boom deployed for cleanup. Shrimpers worry larva and eggs could be harmed ahead of spring inshore season.   A large portion of the oil spilled into the Gulf has been recovered, but shrimpers say the damage already could be done. According to a news release from Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, an oil storage company whose platform leaked Feb. 26, the company has recovered roughly 616 barrels of the 750 that leaked from the platform into the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by the U.S. government as Gulf of America. LOOP, the U.S. Coast Guard, Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s Office, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality, NOA and others are working together on the spill and formed a unified central command. All questions are being funneled through Loop. A previous news release from LOOP said roughly 12,600 gallons of crude oil had escaped. That number has increased to 31,500 gallons or 750 barrels.  According to their March 7 release, 27,888 gallons have been cleaned up. The platform which sprung the leak is roughly 18 miles out from Port Fourchon in Lafourche Parish. According to LOOP’s Director of Planning Wade Tornyos, the company learned of the mechanical malfunction when it saw a sheen Feb. 26 and stopped the leak. As of March 7, 464 people, 60 boats, skimmers and 28,300 feet of protective and collection boom have been deployed to respond to the spill. 17 birds have been reported affected. Shrimpers are concerned their crop has been affected, too. According to David Chauvin, of David Chauvin’s Seafood, the brown shrimp are currently laying their eggs, and the larva is rising to the top of the sea column – the same place an oil sheen will sit. The winds cause wave action that then blow the larva into the bays and estuaries. “My grandfather used to call it ‘Les vents de Carême,’ The Winds of Lent,” he said. “That larva, there isn’t a doubt in my mind, is coming in in waves.” The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries are currently monitoring the oil spill and said the opening of the spring inshore shrimp season historically opens in two months. “We will be conducting shrimp trawl sampling in that basin leading up to the opening of the spring inshore shrimp season, which historically opens more than two months from now,” the department said in a release regarding the oil spill. “Only a fraction of the recruitment of juvenile Brown Shrimp from offshore to inshore waters has occurred at this point and will continue over the next two months.” This article originally appeared on The Courier: LOOP releases update on oil spill; shrimpers concerned for crop Reporting by Colin Campo, Houma Courier-Thibodaux Daily Comet / The Courier USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect ...read more read less