Ailing shrimpers dealt a tough blow

BAYOU LA BATRE, Ala. — The immediate and devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina on an industry that already was in serious trouble is obvious in this small Alabama fishing town south of Mobile.

Dozens of shrimp trawlers, their cranes and netting splaying from their sides like wings, have been tossed ashore or into sea grass. They lay clumped or alone at awkward angles.

Along Shell Belt Road, shrimp processing plants on the bayou are smashed up and smeared with awful-smelling mud slime, inches thick. The water has receded, but the whole area smells like sewage, diesel fuel and decay.

Peeling machines that only weeks ago hummed as they handled as much as 70,000 pounds of shrimp a day are silent now, sitting in dark, dank buildings filled with displaced swamp snakes.

Workers have set out office computers to dry in the sun, while hurling filthy furniture, carpeting and ruined cabinets into dumpsters.

"This disaster is a death blow to the industry — that's all I got to tell you," said Walton Kraver, 69, president of Jubilee Foods, one of the largest shrimp processing and storage businesses along this part of the coast.

Years of erosion of market share by cheaper Asian and South American imports, rising fuel costs and too many boats harvesting in the Gulf have caused the American shrimp business to shrink from more than $1 billion a year in 2000 to about $500 million last year, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a Gulf trade group.

Now, Katrina has destroyed or severely damaged shrimp boats and shrimp processing and storage facilities in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Shrimpers in the three states bring in almost half of all U.S. shrimp.

"They were hoping to have more time to deal with their problems instead of running into a brick wall," said Ralph Rayburn, a Gulf shrimp industry expert at Texas A&M University. "My sense is they have run into the brick wall."

Time to evaluate

In Bayou communities across the north Gulf, shrimpers are anxiously trying to figure out the storm's financial hit. Bayou La Batre fared better than many small shrimping communities to the west. Many small towns in the Louisiana bayous and marshes remain under water.

Louisiana brings in more shrimp than any other state. It harvested more than 125 million pounds in 2003, the last year for which data are available from the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service, a federal agency that oversees the nation's marine resources. Mississippi brought in more than 17.5 million pounds that year; Alabama, 15.7 million pounds.

With Bayou La Batre's damage, many in the shrimp business are evaluating whether they can stick it out.

Charles Rodriguez, 27, stood on the deck of a friend's boat and stared at his own 100-ton trawler, Integrity. It lay on its side on the dock 20 feet away.

"All our act-of-God clauses ran out, didn't they?" he said, referring to insurance protections from hurricanes.

Rodriguez said he called a crane company, and it told him it would be four to six weeks before anyone could even give him an estimate for getting his boat back in the water.

He spent Friday unloading some fuel from the boat. He already had gotten the shrimp off and stored them safely on friend's boat that still had a working refrigerator. The infrastructure for processing shrimp is so damaged in this area that a company from Texas was coming to pick up the shrimp.

Rodriguez said he had just about had it, especially if diesel prices rise significantly.

His friend, Steve Strader, 48, the owner of Troy's Dream, was able to push the boat's stern back in the water, and it appears seaworthy. If he could find the fuel, he could go out shrimping.

"If I get some shrimp, who am I going to unload to now?" he said.

Strader said he has seen lots of people give up shrimping in recent years. They try to sell their boats, or just declare bankruptcy.

"I've seen a lot of good people, hardworking and tight with their money, just run out of options," he said.

Consumption disrupted

The storm didn't just interrupt shrimp collection, it halted some key shrimp consumption.

New Orleans had been a major consumer of Gulf shrimp, mainly for tourists in French Quarter restaurants.

"There is not going to be a tourist in New Orleans for years to come," said Kraver. Official estimates are more optimistic about the city's recovery, but everyone agrees it will take months just to turn the power on.

Remaining shrimp processing facilities in Florida, Texas and North Carolina are going to be overwhelmed with supplies. To get to those places, shrimpers here will have to burn more fuel.

Another concern is that foreign importers will steal further market share while American suppliers are rebuilding. American-caught shrimp account for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the shrimp consumed in the country today, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance.

Kraver, standing in muck caked on the floor of all over the his shrimp processing plant, said his family business has diversified to other seafood, storage facilities and boating operations to stay afloat, so his family will be OK.

But his shrimp operations, started in 1967, are in serious trouble. A Biloxi, Miss., processing facility is gone. His processing facility here at Bayou La Batre is out of commission. Businesses in New Orleans that owe him tens of thousands of dollars have been demolished. Shrimpers whom he dealt with in Louisiana bayou communities have been wiped out.

"We just don't know how it's going to end up," said Joseph Kraver, Walton's 35-year-old son who works in the business.

Hard-hit families

The small shrimp trawlers, owned by traditional Cajun or Creole Gulf Coast families or by Vietnamese refugees, will be hardest hit. For them, the boat is their livelihood and their real estate nest egg in one.

In the bayou, boats with names like Bayou Cat, Miss Sammie and Day Angel are tossed onto the shore. Each one represents lost income for a shrimping family.

Phan-Van Tran, 50, from Pensacola, Fla., tied his boat St. Peter in Bayou La Batre just before Katrina hit, then drove home for safety. Friday, he and his wife came back for the first time. They found the 90-ton boat on its side on land. Tran got out a ladder and climbed up to inspect the boat.

Asked what he planned to do, Tran said, "I don't know. I need some help. I guess I will wait for some government people."

He looked as the beached boat for a while longer and then drove off.

Rayburn at Texas A&M said American shrimpers won some recent trade disputes that would restrict imports, but this storm raised serious questions about whether they can make money.

The problem is simple: The value of shrimp has not gone up, while shrimpers' costs have.

Another long-term issue, Rayburn said, is what Katrina has done to the estuaries along the north Gulf. Baby shrimp grow in these part-saltwater, part-freshwater swamps and lagoons. For years, the areas have been eroding into the Gulf. The storm likely accelerated that process, Rayburn said.

"The storm surge will significantly change the coast of the entire northern Gulf," he said

John Williams, secretary-treasurer of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said the problems have been severe, but predicted American shrimping will survive, though the industry might get smaller.

"We can still persevere," he said.

But Strader, the owner of "Troy's Dream," said the storm has raised serious questions for shrimping families across the Gulf.

"When do you stop?" he said. "When do you say enough's enough?"

Cameron McWhirter writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. E-mail: cmcwhirter@ajc.com