THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503240426
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OYSTER LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines
Sixty-two more people are out of work in Northampton County, and a way of life is dying.
Sea Watch International, one of the area's oldest and last remaining clam processors, is closing.
Michael J. Burns, president of the company, said this week that the plant would close by May 8. He blamed problems of wastewater treatment and the fact that clams must be delivered by truck from Northern waters.
Burns' office is in Easton, Md.
On Wednesday, officials of the Virginia Employment Commission visited the plant in Oyster to counsel workers about jobs and training.
With most of Northampton's seafood- or vegetable-processing plants either closed or floundering, many of the Sea Watch workers doubt they will find good jobs.
``Not everybody is going to get a job,'' said Bruce Collins, who has worked at Sea Watch for 15 years. The company is giving employees a week of severance pay for each year on the job, which affords Collins a little breathing room. But not much.
Last year his daughter incurred medical expenses of $80,000 to correct her enlarged spleen. Collins paid about $2,000, thanks to the health insurance he had at Sea Watch. Now he wonders where he will find a job with similar benefits.
``It ain't like I can go out and work on the water,'' said Collins, who was a waterman before joining Sea Watch. ``Those guys are starving out there.''
In the past, Sea Watch was owned by local interests. But the company has passed through several hands and now is owned by Nichirei Foods Co., a Japanese corporation with headquarters in Seattle.
More than just the company's ownership has changed. In 1978, the company started a hand-shucking operation, with local watermen delivering clams to the creekfront factory by boat. By 1980, it started mechanical shucking.
In the late 1980s, Virginia's clam fishery started to disappear. Big clams that meet federal food-processing regulations could be found only in Northern waters, Collins said. So Sea Watch started hauling clams to the factory by truck.
Then the company had problems meeting state water-quality standards. In 1990, Sea Watch began barging its wastewater and clam waste to a licensed dumping area at sea. The shucked clams were trucked to Milford, Del., where they were made into chowder and clam strips, Collins said.
Now, Sea Watch is opening a plant in New Bedford, Mass., where the clams can be hauled off the boats of Northern watermen.
``They want to save any dime they can get,'' said Leon Ward, a Sea Watch worker from Oyster.
George Ward, who also works at Sea Watch, agreed with his brother: ``We're getting a bum deal. I guess everything comes to an end. I'll find something. I'm a working man.'' by CNB