By Rich Phillips, CNN

Apalachicola Bay, Florida (CNN) -- You can feel the tension in the air and on the bay -- even on a Sunday.

When you're an oysterman, your day is a long, hard one spent harvesting oysters on the brown water off Florida's big bend -- known as the forgotten coast. Oyster harvesters say that if oil arrives and turns the bay black, their livings will be as good as over.

"If it comes in here, it's going to kill it," oysterman Victor Causey says. "They keep telling me it's getting closer and closer."

So, the race against the black crude is on. State regulators began the harvesting season early this year, and they expanded the work week to six days of harvesting here in this Florida Panhandle town on the Gulf Coast.

"I'm going to get as many [oysters] as I can until it gets here," Causey says.

Oyster harvesters, shrimpers and fishermen have been preparing for the oil that has been leaking from a undersea BP well in the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon explosion in April.

They say their tourism industry is being hurt by the perception that the oil is already here and struggling with the reality that their businesses may soon be covered in oil.

"It really is a big deal to us. This is our way of life," says Saundra Powell of the Franklin County Seafood Task Force. "It's the only thing we know. This is what we want to do, we choose to do this. It's not something we have to do. We want to do it. We love it. This is what we're happy with."

Seafood is an $80 million industry for this small town of just over 2,000 people. Their food is shipped all over the United States, as well as to Canada and the Far East.

Lawrence Peterson isn't optimistic that anything can be done to stop the spill and contain the approaching oil.

He and his son, Stephen, take turns using giant tongs to scoop up oysters from the bottom of the shallow ocean floor. After doing this for 30 years, the elder Peterson can't imagine a new way of life in a town where tourism and seafood dominate the local industry.

On this particular Sunday, the Petersons are trying to fill up as many 60 pound bags as they can. They get about $20 a bag. They've also gotten their check from BP -- $5,000 for the hit their business has taken. But, they say, they doubt they'll be able to get back on the bay for a long time if the oil arrives in its waters.

"Fifteen years plus, if ever, is what I say," Stephen Peterson says.

And others already know that not only are their futures in jeopardy, so are their future addresses. Many of the oystermen are hoping to be hired by BP to help restore the life they fear losing.

"If they can't hire us to clean it up and plant our bay back so we'll have something in the next two years, however long it takes to get it going -- I'm going to have to pack up and leave," Causey says.

 

 

June 05, 2010

Daniel Dale

Tracey Wilson and his cousin, Dakota Wilson drop their oyster catch from their thongs on their oyster boat in Apalachicola Bay, Florida, May 5, 2010.

CHARLES TRAINOR JR./MCT

APALACHICOLA, FLA. - T.J. Ward's University of West Florida major was architecture, his minor accounting. He lasted a year and a half before history turned him into a dropout.

Ward's late grandfather, Buddy, sold Apalachicola seafood. Ward's father, Tommy, and uncle, Dakie, sold Apalachicola seafood. And so, Ward decided after a brief dalliance with the professions, would he. He now manages the 13 Mile Brand retail location on the Apalachicola River.

"My grandpa and my dad - I didn't ever feel like I could be any better than them," said Ward, a strapping 21-year-old who looks and sounds a decade older. "They were successful in this, and it's a tradition. When your family really cares about something, it's hard for you not to care about it. And then everybody you're around, they make their living off it too. My generation of the family isn't as much into it, and I just didn't want to see it go, really. I just want to make sure - I want to help this tradition keep going on."

But for now, he knows, it is out of his hands.

The slogan of Apalachicola's Boss Oyster restaurant, "oysters all ways, oysters always," suddenly seems like a taunt. If oil from the BP spill permeates the water that sustains the seafood industry that is this Florida Panhandle town's raison d'etre, there will be no local oysters - and, perhaps, no Apalachicola at all.

"If it comes in the bay," said Ward, "this town will be through."

The bay is Apalachicola Bay, whose pristine waters produce 10 percent of America's oysters and 90 percent of Florida's, which is worth more than $5 million. For the town of Apalachicola, population about 2,000, oystering is not just economic lifeblood but a cherished way of life. This is a place with a local newsletter called The Oyster whose front page advertises three radio stations: Oyster Radio 100.5, Oyster Country 106.5, and Oyster Rock 104.5.

The government and BP have begun preparations for the arrival of oil. Shoreline-protecting "boom" is on its way, said Joseph "Smokey" Parrish, the chairman of the Franklin County board of county commissioners, and should arrive in the next few days. According to Cayle Zingarelli, a 21-year-old oysterman, BP has hired about 20 boats to help with its own prevention efforts.

None of this, Parrish acknowledged, has reassured anyone. "The whole county is full of anxiety," he said. "There's fear, there's anxiety, there's frustration, there's anger, there's fear of the unknown, there's a little bit of everything."

One of the many unknowns is how serious the impact of oil might be. Said Parrish: "I don't have a clue. Because we've never had to deal with this. We know how to deal with hurricanes. This is a total different scenario."

Nobody in Apalachicola would be unaffected by serious damage to the bay or to nearby waterways where many residents who do not work in oystering catch shrimp and other seafood.

"All the kids here in this county, they grow up with this," said Ward. "Either their aunt, their uncle, their cousin - somebody does it. This would hurt every family in this town."

Standing behind the desk of Oystercatcher, the women's clothing boutique her daughter owns, Jean Hutchinson listed the ways her own family would be harmed.

Without sales to the tourists who come here to see a seafood town or the locals who have money because of seafood, Oystercatcher might not survive in Apalachicola; Hutchinson's daughter has begun to think about an unwanted relocation. The downturn would wound the family construction business. And Hutchinson's 23-year-old son, who obtained his boat captain's licence just last year to secure his future catching seafood, might have to leave home for cleaner waters.

"It's a little discouraging for him," she said, "looking ahead to his future. He wanted to stay here and do that. He's got the boat and everything."

Oystering in the Apalachicola Bay, said Zingarelli, is not a fun way to earn a living. To harvest local oysters, oystermen manoeuvre 3-metre wooden tongs over the side of their boats; no dredging around here. Asked if his job is good, Zingarelli offers a laughing "not really."

But it pays well in a place with not much else to do, and he has been doing it for five years. The spill has jeopardized it. Orders to the wholesalers to whom men like Zingarelli sell their catch dropped immediately after the spill. Zingarelli's income has dropped by more than half.

The state government attempted to help Apalachicola oystermen make as much money as possible before the oil arrives by eliminating a prohibition on Saturday harvesting. Oyster boats dotted the bay Saturday.

The scary question is how long the tradition that brought T.J. Ward back from college, the tradition that has fed members of his family since the 1930s, will continue. Leaning on the counter of the 13 Mile Brand store, Ward repeatedly urged BP and the government to attempt fight the spill before it reaches local waters. He then contemplated the consequences of failure.

"It'll put a halt to our whole lifestyle," he said, shaking his head. "Instead of dragging for shrimp, instead of oystering, we'll be cleaning up oil."