Everyone Feels the Pinch of High Gas Prices
For the 45th year, thousands of visitors are coming to town this weekend to partake in the Isle of Eight Flags Shrimp Festival. But amidst the celebration, shrimpers in the birthplace of the shrimping industry aren’t as sanguine. Skyrocketing diesel prices and continued competition from foreign shrimp are catastrophic to them, they say. “We have a disaster, and it’s going to get much worse,” Shrimp Producers Association Executive Director Janie Thomas said Tuesday. “Shrimp boats are unable to afford diesel fuel, and so they stay tied to the dock. If they can’t go out and make a living and support their families, it’s a disaster.” Thomas is appealing to U.S. Sens. Bill Nelson and Mel Martinez to have the state of shrimping declared a disaster, qualifying shrimpers for relief under the federal Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, designed to protect American fishery interests. Thomas suggests relief through a $2 per gallon cap on fuel for shrimpers. “More of them would get out and work, and we’d have more for our local market,” she said. “And more people would buy local shrimp.” Three decades ago, about 100 shrimpers docked in Fernandina Beach. Now, only 20 do, Thomas said. Martin Lents of Fernandina Beach has been a shrimper in Fernandina Beach since 1977. “As far as the economics of it, it’s gone steadily down,” he said. A flood of imported farm-grown shrimp for years has lowered the prices local shrimpers receive for their catch. Now, climbing fuel costs are their most formidable obstacle, Thomas said. Jim Corbett rents dock space to shrimp boats at the former pogey plant near the confluence of Amelia River and Egans Creek. “A guy went out yesterday, caught $1,500 in shrimp and paid $2,000 for fuel,” he said Tuesday. “They’re a dying breed. It’s just a matter of time before there’s no place to tie up. A lot of them can’t even afford it.” The Straightway, a shrimp boat on Corbett’s dock, has been tied there for months, he said. “They wait for the bigger catches. And if they don’t come, they go broke,” he said.