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FEMA denies funding for aquarium

A $99,766 claim is denied, but $616,000 okayed to buy replacement fish.

NEW ORLEANS - In what some see as another bureaucratic absurdity after Hurricane Katrina, FEMA is refusing to pick up the cost of restocking New Orleans' aquarium because of how the new fish were obtained: straight from the sea.

FEMA would have been willing to pay more than $600,000 for the fish if they had been bought from commercial suppliers. But the agency is balking because the Audubon Aquarium of the Americas replaced the dead fish the old-fashioned way, with hooks and nets, which it says does not comply with FEMA rules.

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

Aquarium officials wanted to reopen the place quickly. So even before the $616,000 commitment from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, they sent a team on an expedition to the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Keys and Bahamas, where they caught 1,681 fish for $99,766.

"FEMA does not consider it reasonable when an applicant takes excursions to collect specimens," FEMA quality control manager Barb Schweda wrote in a 2006 e-mail. "They must be obtained through reputable sources where, again, the item is commercially available."

[Last modified November 14, 2007, 01:41:02]