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Virginia Looks for Oysters After Katrina Wipes Out Supply

Posted on: Thursday, 8 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

Sep. 8--Virginia's oyster-shucking houses are scrambling to find replacement oysters after Hurricane Katrina virtually wiped out the oyster industry from New Orleans east to the Florida panhandle.

Seafood processors are hoping an anticipated fall bumper crop of oysters from Virginia, Maryland and Delaware will offset the loss of Gulf Coast oysters, which account for about 90 percent of the supply to the state's shucking houses.

"I'm seeing a very, very difficult situation," said Frances Porter, president of the Virginia Seafood Council.

In Lottsburg on Virginia's Northern Neck, seafood processor Lake Cowart expects prices to rise for bushels of oysters as he hunts for local supplies to feed his shucking house. But neither Porter nor Cowart could predict with certainty how consumers in Virginia would be affected by the damage to the Gulf Coast oyster industry.

"I'm sure prices will go up," Cowart said. "Most of the processing houses in Virginia rely on the southern houses to meet most of their needs."

Cowart said he spoke to Bayou La Batre, Ala., mayor Stan Wright a Gulf Coast oysterman on Tuesday and was told that the area's seafood packing business is wiped out.

"He said his plant had about six feet of water in it," Cowart said.

Some plants are now just concrete slabs. Boats are gone and watermen have lost everything some even their lives, Cowart said.

"These people's lives are impacted," he said. "They're not even thinking about oysters right now."

Oyster grounds and packing houses to the west of New Orleans on into Texas survived intact, Cowart said. That means Virginia shucking houses may still be able to secure some Gulf Coast oysters, though to what extent is unknown.

Ronnie Bevans, another Northern Neck seafood processor, said he'll be counting on oysters from the Delaware Bay and the James, York, Rappahannock and other rivers.

Chesapeake Bay tributaries will open to oyster harvesting in October, he said.

"We've always bought a fair amount of oysters out of the upper part of the bay," Bevans said. "But lots of companies depend solely on the Gulf Coast. We've never been that way."

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Source: Daily Press

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