Link to Reference: Matthew Brown, West Bank bureau, February 06, 2006

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Highlights:
- 100 Louisiana oyster farmers facing hard times since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed their oyster reefs are headed back to the water, as newly minted state contractors charged with assessing the storms' long-term damage.
- The only money so far in the pipeline is $199 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Emergency Conservation Program. That money will be split between farmers and oyster growers across six states that had hurricanes in 2005: Louisiana, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi.
- Thousands of acres of oyster reefs were smashed by Katrina and Rita. The hurricanes also churned up millions of tons of silt in areas such as Lake Borgne and Black Bay. As the silt settled, it smothered about 60 percent of the shellfish crop east of the Mississippi.

More than 100 Louisiana oyster farmers facing hard times since Hurricanes Katrina and Rita destroyed their oyster reefs are headed back to the water, as newly minted state contractors charged with assessing the storms' long-term damage.

The work is a welcome change for the commercial fishers, who in many cases lost houses and boats on top of severe damage to the resource they depend on.

"It is more or less raining in a dry bucket for these fishermen to go out and do this. They can go out there and in a couple of weeks make 10 grand they didn't have," said Ricky Melerine, a St. Bernard Parish councilman coordinating the damage assessment in his parish.

Participants test the consistency of water bottoms using long poles, gathering information the state can use to decide where to rebuild reefs. The state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is spending about $1.2 million on the program.

That pales against the $2.2 billion economic blow Louisiana's seafood industry suffered in the storms. And John Roussel, assistant secretary for fisheries, said his cash-strapped agency has little more to offer fishers unless the state's call for $700 million in federal fisheries assistance is answered.

The only money so far in the pipeline is $199 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Emergency Conservation Program. That money will be split between farmers and oyster growers across six states that had hurricanes in 2005: Louisiana, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Alabama and Mississippi. The money will be split again among various agricultural interests, including oysters, poultry and swine, according to state and USDA officials.

"When you start breaking that $200 million amongst all those, I don't know what kind of share oysters might get," Roussel said.

Thousands of acres of oyster reefs were smashed by Katrina and Rita. The hurricanes also churned up millions of tons of silt in areas such as Lake Borgne and Black Bay. As the silt settled, it smothered about 60 percent of the shellfish crop east of the Mississippi.

"In some cases reefs that were there for 40, 50 years are not there anymore," said Port Sulphur oyster farmer Pete Vujnovich Jr.

The oyster grounds east of the river are some of the top oyster-producing areas in the country, accounting for about one-sixth of all oysters harvested nationwide annually. Historically, Louisiana oyster growers working 2.3 million acres of public and private leases have provided more than a third of the nation's oysters.

State officials are hoping the USDA money will pay for future efforts to rebuild ruined reefs, an expensive endeavor that involves laying down thousands of tons of limestone or broken oyster shells.

First, however, the oyster farmers have been asked to pinpoint exactly what areas are salvageable. That work already has begun in St. Bernard and is expected to begin this week in Plaquemines.

The oyster farmers are surveying 550 plots east of the Mississippi River. The state is paying $2,000 per plot, and each plot takes about two days to survey, according to participants.

Water-bottom hardness is gauged by sticking poles into the mud at 400 locations within each plot.

To provide suitable oyster habitat, the bottom must be hard enough so that new reef material does not sink. Tidal currents must be present to bring a steady flow of nutrients that oysters consume by filtering from the water.

"Right now we're going to have to concentrate on what Katrina left us to work with that's viable or that could be easily restored," Vujnovich said. "The places that took extensive damage, if we don't have any help, we're going to have take care of over the years. It will be a lifetime."

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Matthew Brown can be reached at mbrown@timespicayune.com or at (504) 826-3784.