Katrina took a heavy toll on Louisiana's oyster harvest, cutting into supplies of the delicacy and raising prices.
By WAVENEY ANN MOORE, Times Staff Writer
Published September 17, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - Hurricane Katrina has yielded yet another casualty. Oysters, savored by the dozen and a favorite in Thanksgiving and Christmas dishes, will be in short supply and pricier in coming months.
Louisiana, the nation's largest oyster producer, lost most of its harvest, along with infrastructure that supports it. Recovery of the state's oyster beds is expected to take several years.
Patrick Banks, a Louisiana state marine biologist, is wavering between pragmatic pessimism and wistful hope. And he offered assurances about the safety of Louisiana seafood.
"There's been this idea that all of the Gulf Coast is this toxic soup, and that's not the case," he said.
Price and safety are troublesome issues for some.
"I got my first delivery this week since the hurricane," Paul Johnson of Seven Springs Seafood in New Port Richey said Friday.
The cost for pint containers had increased by $1 and boxes by $2, Johnson said. "Right now, I haven't passed those prices along to my customers. If they stay up, I will have to eventually. It's probably going to be a difficult time for the next few months."
At Mastry's seafood in St. Petersburg, Dale Mastry is no longer offering oysters. Oyster prices were already high before Katrina, he said. Besides, he said, "people are reluctant to eat them" and there's "a lot of uncertainty" about what's coming out of Louisiana.
But at Darden Restaurants, which operates Red Lobster, Olive Garden, Bahama Breeze and other well-known restaurants, there is little concern.
"We don't overly rely on one geographic area," said spokesman Mike Bernstein. "We lock in our prices for a significant period of time. Because we purchase from so many different sources, (losing) one source would not be a problem for us."
Louisiana supplies 40 percent of the nation's oysters. Oyster beds in the southeastern portion of the state - from Bayou Lafourche to the Mississippi line - which produce roughly two-thirds of the harvest, were practically decimated, said Banks, who is in charge of oyster management for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries in Baton Rouge.
"Our original estimate was that we lost 99 percent of the oysters in that area," he said. "It doesn't look as bad as we feared, but it doesn't look good. I'm hoping that it will be no worse than about 80 percent, but I am just being hopeful."
The third of the oyster producing area that remains, west of Bayou Lafourche, "is going to keep our industry going," Banks said.
"The Department of Health and Hospitals does not have that area closed," he said. "In that area, they have determined, as of this morning, this area can be opened to harvest. The waters are clean."
Gig Migliano of Save On Seafood, a retailer and wholesaler in Tampa and St. Petersburg, said shoppers should not be concerned about the safety of oysters now being harvested.
"Oysters are harvested from as close as Cedar Key, Florida, all the way out to Galveston, Texas, and each state coastline has an area assigned to it by the state, and those areas are inspected daily for bacterial levels," he said.
Banks said he expects increased harvesting in the area undamaged by the storm. Prices, though, are rising, he said. In the weeks since the hurricane, dockside prices have gone from $20 for a sack of oysters to $28.
There is also bad news of a different kind for the clam industry.
Thursday all clam farming off Cedar Key was ordered to remain closed until Red Tide levels drop. Water samples collected Wednesday off Dixie and Levy counties showed concentrations of Red Tide nearly six times the state's limit.
More than 200 clam farms in the area produce 100-million clams a year and generate $10-million in annual revenue, said Leslie Sturmer, shellfish aquaculture agent for the University of Florida extension office.
Information from Times wires was used in this report.
