Summer oystering faces tougher rules

APALACHICOLA — New summer oyster rules, introduced last year to further reduce the incidence of a potentially deadly food-borne bacteria, did not work out as planned, and will likely give way to an even lengthier period of restrictions in 2011.

State aquaculture regulators are busy hammering out modifications to summer rules to be introduced in April, one month earlier than last year, and to extend into November, a month later than was the case in 2010.

In addition, the revised rules are likely to require greater documentation of harvesters’ adherence to stricter time and temperature controls, and to call for stepped-up enforcement to ensure better compliance of these controls from harvest to refrigeration.

The tougher measures stem from meetings Jan. 11 to 13 in Orlando of the Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference’s (ISSC) vibrio management committee, which reviewed the latest data on the illness rate of vibrio vulnificus. A naturally occurring bacteria that flourishes in warm Gulf of Mexico waters, vibrio can cause illness or death if ingested in raw oysters by individuals with compromised immune systems, but can be eliminated either through cooking or by a variety of post-harvest processing (PHP) methods.

Ken Moore, executive director of the ISSC, said the committee reviewed data that showed Gulf states failed to meet the target of a 60 percent illness reduction rate for 2009 and 2010. He said based on data from the four reporting states, Florida, Texas, Louisiana and California, vibrio illnesses declined by 36.3 percent in 2009 and by 41.4 percent last year.

“We’re expecting two or three more cases (for 2010),” he said. “There’s always a lag time in reporting illnesses.”

Moore said a number of these cases occurred in April and November, months not included in last year’s tougher summer rules. Beginning May 1, 2010, and running through July, harvesters who abided by traditional harvesting methods had to deliver their catch to a certified dealer by 11:30 a.m. From August through October, the deadline was noon.

Harvesters also had the option of putting cooling systems on their boats, which could keep them on the water up until 3 to 4 p.m., depending on the method. This option was rarely employed by the oystermen, many of whom lacked the financial resources or the space on their boats to create an effective system.

Instead, both processors and harvesters opted for a third “rapid cooling” option, in which seafood houses demonstrated the ability to cool oysters to 55 degrees within two hours, and which enabled harvesters to stay on the water until 2 p.m. if they were bringing them their catch. Harvesters did not require on-board cooling systems, and could keep oysters on their boats for up to six hours.

Concerns over compliance with the rules

The ISSC committee, however, was not convinced enforcement of these rules was what it should have been in Florida, and recommended HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points) regulations that now govern processors during regular inspection visits be extended to harvesters.

“What we heard at the meeting was that enforcement was inadequate in Florida,” Moore said. “Texas indicated they had compliance, but we had indications that Florida did not have compliance and it came from several sources. Florida acknowledged that they had compliance issues.”

Tommy Ward, owner of 13 Mile Oysters, stressed the lack of compliance at the ISSC meeting, and said it had been an unusual year marked by a treacherous oil spill that affected oyster production throughout the Gulf. “The way I see it, we all had a bad year with the oil spill,” he said.

“The states put in a rule-making process, but they did not enforce it,” Ward said. “FWC went up to boats and they said they were working for dealers. Florida didn’t follow the matrix. There were problems and there were repercussions for them,”

Capt. Rob Beaton, who works in field operations for FWC, said law enforcement’s efforts on the water were complicated by a set of rules that doesn’t empower the department on land.

“We knew from the beginning that very few of the primary producers would have any type of onboard cooling due to restrictions on the size of the boats,” he said. “We knew that all the fish houses but two were approved for quick cool. If we did see a vessel out there that may have been beyond the time temperature matrix, we don’t have the resources to stay with that harvester and follow him all the way to the fish house.

“When we check boats, we ask the questions and if the question has the right answer, we don’t have the resources to follow each and every harvester back to the hill to make sure the answer they gave on the water matches the actions they’re taking once they’ve landed the oysters,” said Beaton.

“There’s a lot of responsibility on the part of the fish house to make sure there’s compliance,” he said. “The first question they should be asking, if they’re taking in oysters at 3 p.m., is ‘Let me see your onboard cooling.’ Or those oysters should never come into the house.”

Ward is reluctant to point the finger at any one aspect of the industry, including law enforcement.

“Dealers are just as much at fault as the harvesters because they didn’t take it seriously, and we’re going to suffer for it,” he said. “All this affects us one way or another. You got certain rules, certain guidelines, you got to follow.

“The harvesters and the dealers, if they want to protect their heritage, their job security, they’re going to have to take heed of these rules, or we’re in big time trouble,” Ward said.

Adding to the existing rules, without a clear idea of how well they have been followed, is not the solution, Ward believes. “They’re not following the regulations that are there now,” he said. “We don’t know if it worked. How can you put on us more rules?”

A closer look at bay closures

The urgency of the issue, though, remains strong, given that the Food and Drug Administration has indicated its desire to shut down traditional raw oysters for seven months of the year, and to require post-harvest processing (PHP) during that period. Only a massive push by the industry in early 2010 prevented the FDA from putting in the PHP mandate, which has been put on hold until further analysis (see sidebar)

Ward said he sat next to Don Kraemer, FDA’s chief oyster safety regulator, at the ISSC meetings, and heard first-hand about the FDA’s intent. “That came out of his mouth,” Ward said. “It’s unbelievable what they’re doing to us.”

Because of the looming threat of full-scale PHP requirements, Ward believes the industry should give careful consideration of summer bay closures in lieu of extended time-temperature controls.

“Are we better served to close for three months and do away with time and temperature controls?” he asks.

Another complicating factor to this past summer’s harvest is that while Louisiana’s production plummeted due to oyster bed closures, those in neighboring states went up, as demand pressed the dwindling supply.

“Production in Florida and Texas actually went up because Louisiana had closures,” said Moore. “There was a shortage of oysters in the marketplace nationally. Regulations curtailed production, and the oil spill curtailed production, and this had a dramatic impact on the supply and demand of Gulf oysters.”

That impact was not always beneficial, contends Ward, who said distribution of a poor quality, undersized product has done Apalachicola little good in the long run.

“We had an opportunity to market in places we’ve never marketed before,” he said. “But they put out these little bitty poor quality oysters in markets and they trashed the market with Apalachicola oysters.

“They gave us a big black eye,” he said. “People didn’t want that no more.”

The situation will be different in 2011, Ward believes, as retail prices sag and pressure is on to drop prices paid to harvesters from their current $18 to $20 per bag levels.

“The market’s way back down because the demand isn’t there,” he said. “And we’re getting production from all the other states.”

Recouping PHP costs would be challenge

A preliminary draft of a post-harvesting processing study contracted last year by the Food and Drug Administration says that it would take anywhere from $8 million to $35 million, and two to three years, for the Gulf oyster industry to have the capacity to treat its product during the summer months.

And even then, it might be difficult to generate the revenue needed to make these post-harvested processed (PHP) profitable.

RTI International revealed its initial findings at this month’s ISSC vibrio committee meeting in Orlando, analyzing the impact of requiring PHP of Gulf oysters harvested from April through October and intended for raw half-shell consumption. PHP methods surveyed included cool pasteurization, cryogenic individual quick freezing with extended storage, high hydrostatic pressure processing, and low-dose gamma irradiation.

Because the industry saw a double dose of challenges this summer, from oil spill bay closures to the first year of tougher summer harvesting rules, RTI relied on data for 2008 as a representative baseline. “Because harvest volumes will be substantially reduced because of these events, fewer oysters would require PHP based on more current data. When the oyster industry recovers from the effects of the oil spill and possibly more harvesters are able to comply with time-temperature requirements, harvest levels may return to more normal levels,” they wrote.

The study said average monthly PHP capacity available in the Gulf is 167 million oysters, which is only 27 percent of the estimated average monthly summer harvest and 66 percent of the estimated average monthly half-shell Gulf summer harvest shipped interstate.

The study said installing PHP equipment would require at least two years for Gulf oyster operations, to complete everything from developing plans for expanding plants to purchasing and installing equipment, and training workers.

One idea that RTI explored was the creation of central PHP facilities serving specific regions, with the likely spots being New Orleans, Cameron and Houma, La., Bayou La Batre, Ala., Apalachicola and Orlando.

“To establish a central PHP facility in the Gulf, which would likely need to be operated by a local or state agency, at least three years would be required,” said the study. “Even with the establishment of central PHP facilities, an estimated 28 oyster processing establishments are predicted to shut down during the summer months because the costs of PHP relative to sales revenue would exceed the estimated profit ratios of the establishments if the price of half-shell oysters does not change in response to PHP requirements.

“The total initial capital equipment purchase and installation costs associated with PHP for Gulf oysters is estimated to be $8 million to $35 million, depending on which process is installed, excluding the cost of land purchases,” said the study.

The researchers concluded that while sensory studies show that consumers are likely to favor both traditional and PHP oysters most are willing to only pay the same amount for PHP as they would for traditional oysters.

The study suggests PHP requirements would result in a 4.9 to 12.4 percent increase in the price of raw half-shell Gulf oysters in the summer; a 2.4 to 3.8 percent decrease in the volume of raw half-shell Gulf oysters sold in the summer; up to a 2.5 percent increase in the price of shucked Gulf oysters in the summer; and a roughly 2.7 percent increase in the volume of shucked Gulf oysters sold in the summer.