Oyster Industry Foresees Tighter Rules

The Apalachicola Bay oyster industry, still the largest in Florida and a major local employer, is bracing itself for a new round of regulations to be drafted  by year's end and put into place by May 2010.

The new rules, which could involve more bay closures, shorter working hours and even required on-board refrigeration methods, are on the horizon due to the Gulf of Mexico oyster industry's likely inability to meet guidelines for reducing the incidence of vibrio vulnificus in 2008.

The 16-year-old Interstate Shellfish Sanitation Conference, which promotes shellfish sanitation through cooperation of state and federal regulators, the shellfish industry, and academia, agreed to rules nearly a decade ago designed to reduce the incidence of vibrio.

A pathogen found in raw oysters that is destroyed when they are cooked, vibrio can cause illness and even death among people who have chronic illnesses and who eat oysters raw.

The industry met the required 40 percent reduction in vibrio illnesses during 2005-06, but will likely not meet the goal for 2007-08.

"We know we are not going to meet the 60 percent reduction goal," said David Heil, a chief aquaculture regulator with the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

"It will be painful," he said. "There are things that the industry will have to do, make changes, to get there."

Following a pre-Labor Day telephone conference with representatives of the local oyster industry, Florida's representatives to last week's ISSC fall board meetings in Memphis, TN, presented the state's proposal.

In addition to Heil, among those present from Florida were Apalachicola Bay oyster processor Tommy Ward, along with Chris Brooks, administrator of shellfish classification with the state, and Dan Leonard, an industry representative who covers the region encompassing North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

The Florida group presented what Heil called "a terse plan" because the final numbers are not yet in as to how much regulation will be needed. "It was difficult for that group to say we would put this regulatory control to meet this level of illness when we don't know the illness level yet," he said. "We'll have a good idea in December and January."

What the state contingent did propose was that they would agree to rely on a recently created "Vibrio vulnificus risk calculator." This complicated scientific formula determines what the specific effect on illness rates would be if the bay is closed for a particular stretch, if hours of harvest are curtailed or if oysters are chilled while on board boats. It also makes precise what percentage reduction would happen if a combination of these methods are employed.

"The plan said the risk calculator is a useful tool to help scientifically determine what controls might be necessary and that here are a couple examples of how the control could be used," said Heil.

The plan also considered what the effect might be of reducing time of harvest, enforcing a cool down requirement that makes more efficient use of refrigeration in harvesting and processing, or a combination of these measures.

"They did not present at all closures or required onboard refrigeration," said Heil. "They don't know if they'll have to implement such harsh measures in order to meet the illness reduction goal. It was a very benign or minimalistic plan.

The ISSC's vibrio management committee, the technical group that received the plan, "liked the plan but they gave, as we all knew they would, additional guidance," said Heil.

The committee wants a more specific plan presented by Dec. 15 that outlines steps to be taken if the illness reduction goal is 10, 20, 30 or 40 percent, or whatever the eventual numbers indicate is required.

The challenge that the local industry has is two-fold, in that they must meet the vibrio reduction goals while at the same time maintaining their customer base in an industry that encompasses coastal harvesting off Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida.

Heil said both the Food and Drug Administration and the ISSC want uniform controls to govern the entire Gulf Coast. He said their fear is that individual state closures could spawn increased production in neighboring states, and would result in no lessening of vibrio exposures to the general population.

"There are a lot of nuances we have to work around and it does make a uniform regulation difficult to achieve," Heil said.

He said one option might be to allow early morning or nighttime harvesting, when the summer waters are cooler, but trim the amount of time anyone is allowed to harvest.

On the conference call earlier this month, Apalachicola seafood dealer Grady Leavins offered to donate materials to construct cooling units on boats during the warm period from May to October. "I think it's the only way we can respond," he said. "If we ice seven months out of the year, we can work 12 months out of the year.

Heil cautioned that if such devices were mandated, regulators would only allow units proven to properly lower temperatures.

"It has to be feasible for the industry to do and it has to bring the temperatures down. A box with ice may not do the latter. That's what research will have to do, to see if it brings it down quick," he said. "We may have to burden the harvester in keeping a daily log in receipt of ice, or we may have to burden the processor to take an internal temperature of the oyster harvest. The magic number is to get internal temperature, the meat temperature, to 55 degrees or below as fast as possible and maintain it there as long as possible."

As it stands now, the ISSC will sign off a plan by the end of December, with a timetable to implement the rules into law by May 1, 2010.

"There will probably be no mandatory changes to harvesting and processing in 2009," said Heil. "We will suggest to the harvesting segment (in 2009 ‘Here's where we are headed.'"

One worry that Heil dispelled on the conference call was that Apalachicola oysters might be sharing too much blame for illnesses caused by oysters actually harvested in other parts of the Gulf of Mexico.

"We have a fair share of the illnesses," he said. "It's actually higher than our proportion of harvest."