It will cost an estimated $1.2 billion to rebuild the Gulf Coast's battered commercial fishing industry, federal and state officials say.
WASHINGTON — It will cost an estimated $1.2 billion to rebuild the Gulf Coast's battered commercial fishing industry, federal and state officials say.
"All of were shocked, all of us were stunned. All of us are trying to figure out what do we do now?" William Hogarth, head of the National Marine Fisheries Service, said Thursday before the House Resources Committee's fisheries subcommittee.
But so far there has been no direct federal aid to restore the fishing businesses in the Gulf of Mexico, which was the source of a fifth of the nation's fish, shrimp and oysters before the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to federal and congressional aides.
Hogarth told the lawmakers, "It's probably going to be $1.2 billion" to restore the Gulf's ruined boats, fishing gear, docks, marinas and other support facilities.
Among the losses he cited were $200 million in Alabama from lost property and product in crab, fish, oyster, shrimp and other state fisheries; $156 million in Florida, including $35 million alone from lost fishing gear used in stone crab and lobster fisheries; and $104 million in Louisiana's oyster reefs and beds and coastal wetlands.
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Unless federal, state and local governments do something, he said, the fishing towns and their historic waterfronts will become attractive real estate targets for condominium and casino developers.
"That would be, in my opinion, a very big mistake," Hogarth said.
William S. "Corky" Perret, vice chairman of the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council, said many commercial fishing vessels remain "high and dry" from the August and September hurricanes.
"Our fisheries infrastructure is, not totally, but almost totally gone," he said. "Their personal lives have also been devastated, because their homes are gone, their cars are gone."
John Roussel, head of Louisiana's Office of Fisheries, said something greater is at stake if the commercial fishing communities aren't rebuilt.
"You're going to lose something you can't get back," Roussel said. "Commercial fishing is an art and a tradition. Anyone of us can't start tomorrow being a commercial fisherman. There are some things you get from your dad and your granddad."
Source: Associated Press
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