Shrimpers desperate for channel dredging
With the shrimp fleet making its way back to Fort Myers Beach from the western Gulf of Mexico and diesel prices coming off record highs from last year, shrimpers are now facing yet another setback – low water.
Bubba Driggers, originally from Southwest Florida but now operating a shrimp boat out of Freeport, Texas, learned first-hand how desperate the Matanzas Pass channel needs to be dredged.
Driggers said he was making his way into San Carlos Island last week with 30,000 pounds of gulf shrimp when his boat ran aground in the channel off Bowditch Point.
He had to anchor offshore until high tide to get through and now says unless the channel is dredged soon, he may have to change ports.
“We’re here for the season – hopefully until April, but I don’t know about working out of here because of the trouble we’re having coming in and out,” Driggers said. “We might have to go to Tampa because we could possibly damage the boat coming in.”
Driggers said the channel problem isn’t new.
“Three summers ago, I slammed aground in the same place and twisted the rudder off,” he said.
The cost to repair the rudder was approximately $15,000 to $20,000. “And that’s not counting our down time. This boat was on the railway six weeks, so we’re out so we’re out $15,000 or $20,000 to repair it and lost the production for those six weeks while we were up on the hill. And we don’t make any money when we’re just sitting.”
Members of the West Coast Inland Navigation District approved up to $800,000 for an emergency dredging project for the Bowditch Point portion of the federal channel in June. Sand from that project will be placed on beaches on the north end of Estero Island.
But since then, the permitting process has been bogged down in red tape, according to Steve Boutelle, Lee County Marine Engineering Manager, who oversees beach and shoreline projects.
“We’re pressing to get authorization as soon as possible,” Boutelle said.
Boutelle said he could not predict when the project would begin.
“We’ve been doing everything we can think of,” he said.
Gene Gibson, commander of the Fort Myers Beach Coast Guard Station, said so far he hasn’t had problems getting his vessels in and out of the channel and doesn’t believe there’s a problem for shrimpers if they wait for high tide.
“It seems like they would like to get out when they would like to get out,” he said. “They don’t want to be coming back from fishing and have to sit out until the tide comes up so they can get in.”
Driggers said the channel should be open at all times to vessel traffic.
“We should be able to come and go full or low tide, it doesn’t matter in a marked channel,” he said.
Driggers said the worst area in the channel is between Bowditch Point and the first set of markers, “and it’s been that way for three years.”
Driggers said when his boat, the Beth Lomonte, which draws a little over 11 feet of water when loaded, was grounded last week, it wasn’t at low tide.
“This happened about 30 minutes off high tide,” he said.
Driggers said he was frustrated with the condition of the channel because while he was anchored offshore waiting for another high tide, the price dropped on shrimp.
“We had a $6,000 loss just on the price drop,” he said. “If we’re sitting out there and the price drops then were out of luck.”
And after surviving high fuel prices from last season, the condition of the channel is one more obstacle shrimpers have to face, he said.
“We’re trying to get as much production time in as we can while the fuel price is down and here I’ve been sitting for three days,” he said. “It’s hard enough to make it as it is with the costs and everything.”
Dennis Erickson, co-owner of Trico Shrimp Company on San Carlos Island, which owns 19 shrimp boats and unloads another 30 during shrimping season, said if shrimpers have to work out of another port, it could have a significant effect on the local economy.
“The shrimping industry brings $60 million to $80 million (annually) into this area,” Erickson said, referring to a University of Florida study on the industry. “Whenever they come here to unload, 90 percent of that revenue stays. …The crews will get off the boat and get a hotel room pretty close to this area; they’ll go drinking; they’ll shop here and when they get ready to leave they’ll go grocery shopping.”
Erickson said during season shrimp operators spend about $400,000 a month on groceries.
“I would say the average grocery bill is more than a thousand dollars and some of them two or three thousand,” he said, adding that many other local businesses need the revenue shrimping brings to the area. “The mechanics, the net guys, the electronic guys; all of the support people make money off of those boats that come in here,” he said. “The businesses on the Beach might not be aware of it but these guys go over there. They might be hard core working guys but I’ll tell you what, that’s $20,000 crew share coming to them and all of that will be spent right here.”
Erickson agrees with Diggers that the channel is so bad that captains have to wait until extreme high tide to come and go.
“They can’t even come in at middle tide,” he said.
As to what Erickson plans to do about the situation: “What can we do?” he said. “What are our options? We’re from here and everything we’ve got is here.”