Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 22, 1992 TAG: 9203220061
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D7 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: Medium
"We couldn't stay open if we had to pack Virginia oysters," said Lake Cowart Jr., owner of S.L. Cowart Seafood Co. in Northumberland County.
Cowart's company leases 7,000 acres of river bottom in the Northern Neck, but is unable to grow oysters there since a disease invaded and killed his crop six years ago.
Only 5,000 bushels of the 75,000 bushels of oysters Cowart Seafood packed this year were harvested in Virginia waters. Cowart gets most of his oysters from Maryland.
Virginia had been the top shellfish producer in the United States for most of the century, but oyster diseases struck in the 1960s to wipe out much of the crop.
The state imported 459,000 bushels of oysters last year - four times what Virginia watermen harvested in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
Oysters came to Virginia last year from Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York and Texas, the marine commission said.
In 1964, only 9 percent of the 2 million bushels of oysters sold from Virginia came from other states. By 1967, imports increased to 58 percent of the total.
In the mid-1970s, there were about 150 oyster-shucking houses statewide, according to marine commission estimates. By 1988, two-thirds of them had gone out of business. Among the first to close were two large shucking houses in Norfolk that employed 900.
Cowart's plant opened in 1980 and its roughly 80 employees work year-round. Workers package oysters from October to May, herring roe in early summer and tomatoes until the next oyster season.
by CNB