With Fishing Industry Wiped Out at Midseason, Forecast Is Bleak

By Julie Cart

Sept. 7, 2005 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

GRAND ISLE, La. —

When Hurricane Katrina made landfall last week, it crashed headfirst onto this half-mile-wide finger of sand and marsh grass, Louisiana’s only populated barrier island.

The storm’s impact on the homes and businesses here is obvious: What the wind failed to shred and splinter, the storm surge washed away.

Now, as cleanup begins on this remote island, the extent of the damage inflicted on Louisiana’s $2.7-billion fishing industry is becoming clearer. Around the region the marinas, shrimp sheds, ice producers and supply vessels that support the fishing industry are destroyed, grounding the fleet of offshore fishermen, shrimpers and oystermen at what should be the height of the season.

Officials say the long-term outlook is bleak. Estimates are that it will take 18 months to get commercial fishing up and running. But even when that happens, it may not be worth it for some fishermen -- who must invest as much as $1 million for a shrimp boat -- to go back out.

“Before the storm, when you weigh the price of fuel and the price of shrimp, I’d barely make it,” said Rene Vegas, who owns the Bridgeside Marina here. “Now it will be so much worse.”

Vegas said that normally most shrimpers find other work after the season ends in December, but under the current conditions, “winter starts now.”

This region of coastal wetlands and marshes is the nation’s leading producer of shrimp and oysters, and supplies about 30% of its seafood. Commercial fishing employs some 27,000 people in Louisiana and supports a robust shipping and boat-making industry, which also has been all but destroyed.

The problems are myriad. With many boats and marinas wrecked, returning fishermen won’t be able to make their way to the Gulf Coast. Shrimpers lack ice to preserve their catch and buyers to sell to, and they fear their nets will become entangled with storm debris clogging the waterways.

For oystermen the problem is more elemental. The freshwater and seawater areas of the delta are tainted with raw sewage, spilled chemicals and other toxic substances. State law dictates that certain water quality standards be met before oysters are harvested. The situation is expected to worsen, officials say, as the fetid water surrounding New Orleans is pumped into the state’s system of lakes and rivers, which drain here.

“I don’t know if there is going to be an oyster season at all,” said Ted Falgout, who directs port operations at nearby Port Fourchon.

Because the industry relies on clean water and healthy wetlands to maintain habitat, efforts to restore Louisiana’s fisheries are likely to be as problematic as rebuilding its cities and towns. Even offshore fish and crustaceans use coastal marshes as nurseries.

The extensive marsh system was in decline before the hurricane. Louisiana’s coastal wetlands are the fastest-disappearing land mass on Earth. Since the storm, officials at the United States Geological Survey estimate entire barrier islands and much of the land in the marsh areas were lost, but say they can’t be sure until some water subsides.

Kerry St. Pe is the director of the Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary system, a federally protected area of 4 million acres between the Mississippi and the Atchafalaya rivers. He’s been leading the effort to protect the wetlands in order to preserve wildlife habitat, fisheries and the Cajun culture of south Louisiana’s wetland-dependent communities.

“Our culture, our people, our economy, our wetlands -- you can’t talk about one without the other,” St. Pe said. “The wetlands are what we are. The wetlands is the clothing around our community. Now we are naked.”

Grand Isle is now accessible by four-wheel-drive vehicles that must navigate a buckled roadway across a half-mile bridge. Firetrucks are providing the few hundred residents with water via hoses strung across the causeway.

The traditional homes here, called “camps,” sit atop 12-foot stilts. Normally, fishing boats are everywhere. Now, boats are everywhere but in unusual places -- under homes, thrown across roads, and upside-down on top of cars.

Before Katrina, many fishermen moved their boats north, up canals to shelter them. But the smashed hulls and snapped masts suggest most of the fleet is gone.

“We are out of business completely,” said shrimper Noel Camardelle, standing on the empty concrete where a friend’s house once stood. “I am going to do some carpentry work. Looks like we need to drive a lot of nails around here.”

Still, asked if he would go back out if he could, Camardelle nodded emphatically.

“Fishing is all we have ever done here, it’s all we know,” he said. “I’ve been having this boat for 16 years. I am not walking away.”

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Louisiana’s shrimp basket

Grand Isle is Louisiana’s only inhabited barrier island and home to 280 species of fish, making it a crucial commercial and recreational fishery. Its rich fishing opportunities are due to its location as an estuary and river delta, along with abandoned offshore oil structures, which act as a artificial reefs.

How Louisiana ranks

The dollar value of commercial fishery landings in Gulf states:

2003 (in millions)

Louisiana: $294

Texas: $168

Florida*: $141

Mississippi: $46

Alabama: $37

Top Species

Shrimp bring in the most dollars to Louisiana’s fishing industry.

Landings in Louisiana, 2003 (pounds and dollars in millions)

*--* Pounds Dollars White shrimp 64 $82 Menhaden 962 58 Brown shrimp 59 52 Eastern oyster 14 34 Blue crab 48 33