Ike Wreaks Havoc on Gulf Seafood Industry

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The New York Sun

SAN LEON, Texas — On the eve of October’s peak seafood harvesting season, migrant fishermen are sweeping debris from gutted bay side homes instead of scooping shrimp and oysters from the Gulf of Mexico’s lucrative floor. The $100 million fishing industry in Galveston Bay is virtually paralyzed.

Hurricane Ike’s impact is being felt among Gulf seafood harvesters, distributors, and restaurants. Government and industry officials fear it will take as long as two years for the processing plants, boats, and docks along the bay to recover and rebuild.

“It’s like a bomb went off,” the owner of Prestige Oysters Inc., which is among the largest seafood harvesters in Texas and Louisiana, said.

Hurricanes Ike and Gustav hit the region’s fishermen hard, causing the industry to lose an estimated $300 million in Louisiana alone. The storms scattered debris in waterways and bays, broke docks, and smashed boats. They killed hundreds of acres of oyster reefs with waves of shocking saltwater, and suffocated others with grass clawed from the shore and washed into the Gulf.

Hundreds of Galveston area fishermen were left jobless and they have few, if any, other options, their employers said.

Texas restaurant owners are also feeling the effects.

Seafood prices are up $2 to $3 a pound and shortages of shrimp, halibut, and sea bass emerged in the first week after Ike, the vice president of Dallas Restaurant Group, Nafees Alam, said.

Menus aren’t changing, but South Prairie Oyster Bar owner Will Wickman said he hasn’t seen a Gulf oyster at his suburban Fort Worth restaurant since Hurricane Gustav. His oysters now arrive from the northwest, and customers pay as much as $3 more a dozen.

“And we’re not really making anything at that,” Mr. Wickman said. “But we’ve got to have oysters. It’s kind of like going into 7-Eleven. You got to have the Big Gulp.”

About 60% of oysters sold in eastern America come from Texas and Louisiana, the bulk from Galveston Bay. America consumes about 1.1 billion pounds of shrimp every year, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Louisiana’s commercial fishermen have the largest haul in the lower 48 states at more than 450,000 tons a year, with the bulk of the landings made up of shrimp and menhaden, small fish used for fish meal. The state’s haul is worth about $270 million a year and representatives of its $2.6 billion seafood industry are seeking federal relief.

Texas’s commercial haul — much of it shrimp — is valued at about $172 million and on par with many other states — between 38,200 and 53,100 tons a year.

Michael Ivic, who runs Misho’s Oyster Company in San Leon with his father, is desperate to drive a boat out and comb a dredge along the floor to clean the oysters. He figures he has two weeks to save whatever reefs remain.

A week after Ike thundered into San Leon, two fishermen hauled debris from Misho’s Oyster Company marina because they need the plant running to get a paycheck, Mr. Ivic said.

But the bay remained closed after Ike struck, and Mr. Ivic doesn’t even know which state agency to call to get the waters reopened to boats. Mr. Ivic said his company is a chief supplier to national restaurant chains Landry’s and Joe’s Crab Shack.

“We might lose them,” Mr. Ivic, 26, said.


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