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Anchor Marco Werman talks to Sandra Hamilton of the British Columbia Shellfish Growers Association about how the oil spill in the Gulf might affect the Louisiana and Canadian oyster industries.

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MARCO WERMAN:  One of the big concerns regarding the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is its effect on those whose livelihood depends on the Gulf itself.  The Louisiana oyster industry, for example, is under threat.  Oysters there are harvested mostly in the wild.  By contrast, the Canadian province of British Columbia has a mostly farmed oyster industry.  Sandra Hamilton is with the British Columbia Shellfish Growers Association.  She is in Comox British Columbia which is the oyster capital of Canada.  Sandra, I assume you’re following the situation down in Louisiana pretty closely.  How are shellfish growers in B.C. reacting?

SANDRA HAMILTON:  With a lot of fear and compassion.  They know that this is a terrible, terrible, devastating event that we are all highly aware could happen anywhere in the world at any time and many, many families have been shellfish farmers for three or four generations.  It’s very easy for our shellfish farmers to understand how they are feeling about losing their livelihood.

WERMAN: Sympathy, understandable, but as a consequence couldn’t oyster farmers in British Columbia end up by getting some kind of benefit from the oysters not getting farmed anymore in the Gulf of Mexico?

HAMILTON: There may be a small increase in our market because of this, but we’re very different market.  The Louisiana area has a very high production, around 250 million pounds a year, and in British Columbia, we do about 5,000 tons, which would be a fraction.  You farm more oysters in a very sustainable way in very pristine, clean waters and the oysters in the Louisiana area are mostly natural set and wild growing oysters that are harvested from the beach used to supply the local market.  We are supplying the premium world market in British Columbia oysters in high end restaurants and hotels around the world.  We have a specific oyster.  You see Atlantic oyster that is being grown in and around Louisiana, so I think our first concern is can the livelihood be protected?  Will the oil kill the oysters, or will the oysters be able to survive and clean themselves and recover at least to the point where they could continue to spawn.  Because oysters can actually help clean up an area.  You can’t eat them, of course.  But it’s going to be a very long time before you can eat oysters that are being harvested from that area.

WERMAN: I don’t want to go off on a tangent, but how do oysters clean up a polluted area?

HAMILTON: They filter.  They filter, they eat algae and plankton.  In an ideal environment that you have here in British Columbia, oysters are very hungry animals and they eat a tremendous amount.  An oyster will filter whatever is in the water.  I was actually just on the phone with a scientist trying to get the answer to will oil kill an oyster or will an oyster be able to actually process it.  His opinion is it will kill the oyster.  So if an oyster is killed, to start your industry all over again, you have to bring in seed from another region and start all over again.

WERMAN: I don’t want to raise the specter of Gulf of Mexico oysters going extinct, but could potentially, shellfish growers in Louisiana preserve specimens of the oysters they currently farm for the future in some way?

HAMILTON: They could get a – - seed from other oyster growers on the east coast.  They wouldn’t have to get it from their own local source.  They could get the species and have it reintroduced.  I think there’s really two major concerns that they’ve got.  One, if the oil comes up onto the beach will it kill the oyster?  And from what I’ve heard, probably.  But they are going to have to look at number one cleaning out the beaches, finding seed from other oyster growers, reintroducing the seed, but how long will the oil that’s sitting on the bottom, that we can’t see on the beach, how long will that leech toxic chemicals and what are the chemicals that they’re putting into the water now to try and clean this up?  What are they?  And I think it’s going to be a long time before confidence levels are there for having an oyster that you can eat.  You may have an oyster that can live, but it will be a long time, I think, before people feel confident having an oyster that they can eat.  So it really will have a very devastating effect on shellfish.

WERMAN: Sandra Hamilton with the British Columbia Shellfish Growers Association, greatly appreciate your time indeed.  Thank you.

HAMILTON: Thank you Marco.

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