Earth Protect Blog

Reporting from New Orleans and Los Angeles

As the Louisiana sun beat down on the Westwego Seafood Market, the aisles were as empty as the coolers. Fish hawkers paced alongside sparsely filled counters dotted with shrimp and crabs, calling out in strained voices to the few customers strolling by. Many of the outdoor stalls were boarded up. There wasn't a single oyster to be had. Just a week ago, the market outside New Orleans was packed with crowds grabbing up shellfish for their crab boils, oysters Rockefeller and shrimp etouffee. One load of shrimp — about 350 pounds, at $5 a pound — disappeared in an hour.

No more. Three weeks after the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and spill, the threat of a gulf seafood drought has come to be.
Supplies are down. Customers, worried about contamination, are staying away. And the ripple effects are starting to be felt across the country.

In Southern California, supermarket chains continue to monitor the situation and are lining up alternative seafood supplies from overseas if needed.

The staff at Blue Marine Seafood Inc., a distributor in Los Angeles that sells gulf-caught shrimp to retailers and restaurants, has seen shrimp prices jump at least 30% in the last week.

Genaro Lopez, who runs A Taste of Baja catering company, took gulf oysters off his menu. Most of his suppliers in Los Angeles have run out. Those who have them are charging nearly 20% more.

"Before the oil spill, my supplier would have 1,000 cases from the gulf, no problem. Now? My guy told me this morning that he'd be lucky to get 100 cases," Lopez said.

He and others are also struggling to keep up with a recent increase in prices for imported shrimp. Last week, he said, he bought boxes of shrimp caught in Mexico for $3.95 a pound. On Wednesday, Lopez said, he paid $5.25 a pound.

Nearly 83% of the seafood consumed in this country is imported. The gulf region accounts for about 2% of the seafood eaten in the U.S. and more than three-fourths of the country's domestic shrimp commercial production, said Gavin Gibbons, spokesman for the trade group National Fisheries Institute.

Because of the dominance of imported-seafood suppliers, the group has repeatedly assured consumers that they won't be seeing shortages of seafood in their local grocery freezers. Also, supplies of farmed shrimp are typically lower this time of year.

But oysters could be another matter. Most are harvested domestically, and 70% of all oysters consumed in the U.S. come out of the gulf, Gibbons said. Ten of Louisiana's 28 oyster-harvesting areas are closed, and all Louisiana waters east of the Mississippi River are closed to shrimpers.

The lack of oysters is hurting Jan Sapia, owner of Sapia's Seafood in Des Allemands, La. Before the spill, when times were good, she would sell 32,000 pounds of the shellfish a week and pull in $15,000.

"We don't have anything," said Sapia, 58, who supports a disabled husband.

The long-term impact of the spill on the country's domestic fishing industry also remains unclear.

Earlier this week, The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration expanded the no-fishing zone in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is taking tissue samples of various shellfish and fin fish to test for contamination; results are pending.

Fears of rising prices have prompted some Californians to stock up. At a Costco store in Cypress, customers on a recent afternoon snapped up piles of shrimp and bags of crab legs.

"I have a big freezer, a hungry family and a party coming up," said Cameron Floyd, 43, as he steered his cart stacked with 15 pounds of shrimp and 12 pounds of crab to a cashier. "I have to be ready for the worst."