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The destruction recently visited on the Gulf of Mexico by Hurricane Katrina brought to mind just how vulnerable we are to natural disasters. At the time of this writing we’re only half way through the hurricane season and have no idea what additional damage may be incurred this year. Ophelia just barely missed Cape Cod and Rita has hit the Gulf coast. The scientific journal Nature reports hurricanes have become 50 percent stronger over the past 30 years as a result of the rise in sea surface temperatures, so it is reasonable to expect storms of increasing severity as well as more erratic weather patterns around the globe.
We don’t yet know the full extent of the damage to the fishing fleet in the area of the Gulf struck by Katrina and Rita, but even fishermen in Florida suffered trap losses. The United Commercial Fishermen’s Association (UCFA) is attempting to put together a registry of displaced commercial fishermen. UCFA is encouraging displaced fishermen and their families to call or e-mail the temporary UCFA office located in Baton Rogue (the UCFA office in Chalmette, Louisiana was destroyed by Katrina) at (504) 439-2013 or at nonetsnoseafood@aol.com. [See below in this article on where to send donations].
While Katrina and Rita are sobering reminders of the devastation a natural event can have on the fishing fleet, it’s well to remember that such destruction is not limited to the Gulf -- Ophelia just missed Cape Cod -- nor just to hurricanes, as the Boxer Day tsunami that hit the coastal villages of the Indian Ocean made clear, nor solely from the forces of nature. Disasters, too, can be widespread. Last December’s tsunami wiped out fishing villages from Indonesia to India, Thailand to Sri Lanka. Some may remember, too, the 1964 Alaska earthquake, whose tsunami wiped out Crescent City, California and was felt as far south as San Francisco Bay.
U.S. coastal ports are vulnerable to devastation from hurricanes hitting Texas or Florida, the Carolinas or Massachusetts. It’s not just here either, and there have been severe cyclones on the Indian ocean sinking fishing boats from Bangladesh and India as Katrina was hitting New Orleans. And a major earthquake could hit the Pacific Coast at any time.
The effects on the fishing fleet of such disasters can be widespread. Consider the immediate effect Katrina has had on fuel prices across the nation, further increasing the operating costs of the fishing fleet. The cost of Katrina relief will likely also means cutbacks in federal fishery programs -- money from management to collaborative research -- effecting fishermen from Maine to Alaska. Katrina may have hit only Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, but its effects are going to be felt by fishermen nationwide. The nation’s fishing community is in this together.
Consider what is known now about the destruction of the fishing communities and fisheries in Louisiana, Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico, remembering that next time it could be the Florida Keys or the Gulf of Maine, Southeast Alaska or the Southern California bight.
The Gulf of Mexico has always been an important part of the nation’s seafood production. Louisiana ranks second only to Alaska in commercial fish landings (at 1.1 billion lbs. a year) and makes up 16 percent of the nation’s total fisheries, worth $700 million a year (ex-vessel). Moreover, species such as shrimp, oysters, and crawfish are unquestionably and explicitly tied to the cultural heritage of the creole and Cajun people of the Gulf coast.
At the time of this writing, most fishing in the area hit by Katrina has essentially been halted. There are no docks to offload catch, no refrigeration, no ice, and no fuel. There are 15 major fishing ports and 177 seafood processing facilities in Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Based on preliminary estimates, there are 432 federally permitted fishing vessels in Alabama; 3,738 in Florida; 1,033 in Louisiana, and 351 in Mississippi, with additional fishermen holding state permits. Fishing towns such as Shell Beach and Delacroix Island, Buras and Venice, Port Sulphur and Hopedale are now little more than islands of debris floating in black water. The Louisiana Department of Wildlife & Fisheries (DWF) estimated that the state stands to lose $1.1 billion in retail fish sales over the next year.
The fall harvest of white shrimp (Penaeus setiferus) would be in full swing just now, and many shrimpers would be earning much of their annual income. But trawling may be next to impossible because of debris from the destruction. In 2003, fishermen landed 213 million pounds of shrimp worth $45.5 million, according to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), but Mississippi's shrimp industry is dead for the near-term. The shrimp industry was already challenged before Katrina struck because of competition from foreign imports, particularly farmed Asian shrimp, and rising fuel prices that made catches more costly.
Crabbers are also facing a grim harvest as they search for their pots. Many traps left at sea were washed away. Crabs that survived the storm may die as oxygen levels in local waters decline due to the decaying vegetation and other organic matter washed in by the storm.
Monroe County [Florida] Commercial Fishermen’s Association Executive Director Ralph Boragine is coordinating the local effort to identify and document the names of Keys fishermen who lost lobster traps and other gear in the storm. Boragine is urging fishermen to contact him. Boragine has already been working on a program to obtain aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA); he can be contacted at (305) 619-0039 or by e-mail at mccf1@comcast.net.
Louisiana’s oyster industry was perhaps the hardest hit. State wildlife authorities fear that 99 percent of oysters between the heart of southern Louisiana and the Mississippi state line were lost. In an oyster season that was supposed to start September 7th, officials now fear it won’t open again for 1 to 2 more years. The storm covered the naturally occurring habitat and reefs the oysters settle on with silt or mud, causing them to die. Louisiana was the number one oyster producer in the nation and contributed over 40 percent of the U.S. supply of oysters. Katrina closed most of this and Rita has closed the rest. The closure could spell a loss of nearly $300 million over the next two years for the state. Mississippi State waters were similarly hit, but before the hurricane they produced four million pounds a year.
And even if the infrastructure was available to handle and process catch, the potential for human health risk is very high. The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees the seafood industry, is concerned with the long-term health impacts of harvest of commercial species from the area. According to the FDA, any food item that was potentially exposed to flood waters would be unfit for the human food supply and would need to be destroyed.
Officials with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have stated that the floodwaters in New Orleans are highly contaminated. The receding floodwaters carry an estimated 50 million cubic yards of solid waste. Additionally, millions of pounds of toxic waste were stored in the area, including two hundred pounds of dioxin, a very toxic and persistent pollutant. According to the president of the Midwest Center for Environmental Science & Public Policy, if 0.1 percent of that stored dioxin makes it into the Gulf of Mexico that would be sufficient to contaminate 20 million fish.
Further complicating things was the decision to start pumping the contaminated floodwater in New Orleans back in to Lake Pontchartrain. The floodwater is contaminated with harmful levels of bacteria, as well as chemical pollutants, and has no dissolved oxygen, which will lead to the death of fish and other organisms. Migratory birds that feed on contaminated fish will suffer die-offs. Reptiles and snakes will be driven out of their nests and habitats, and because of this we may see water moccasins and alligators threatening people. The pollution runoff could potentially poison and expand the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico, already the size of Massachusetts.
Estimates are bleak for when fishing can resume, and range from weeks to months. The Louisiana’s DWF released a preliminary estimate suggesting that the state's revenue from commercial fishing may take a 1.3 billion-dollar hit from Katrina—a 40 percent decline from 2003.
As local, state, federal government officials still struggle with rescues and removal of bodies, and look out onto the Gulf for yet more hurricanes, fishermen realize that getting their infrastructure that they need for their businesses is low on the priority list.
What then do we know, what are the lessons to be learned, and what can we do to help rebuild and be better prepared for the future? Experts in dealing with disasters outline four steps for such emergencies: (1) Mitigation; (2) Preparedness; (3) Response, and; (3) Recovery.
A good warning system and heeding those warnings – where warnings are possible – is the obvious way to mitigate human losses, and even property damage where there is the ability to board it up, tie it down, sandbag it or otherwise protect things. The fact that fishing communities along the Gulf, experienced with hurricanes, had few casualties is because they had the warnings and heeded them. Places such as Bayou LaBatre, where fishing boats ended up piled like cordwood on the shore and the infrastructure in ruins, still had no human loss. Compare that with the lack of an adequate tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean, where most of the casualties could have been avoided had people known to get to higher ground and fishermen taken their boats to sea.
Just having a warning system is not good enough, however, as many of the poor found out in New Orleans when they were not able to leave town. No public transportation (i.e., buses) was made available and they were barred at the bridges from entering other parishes by foot. The lessons from Kartina and the Boxer Day tsunami are clear on the need for good warning systems, the need to heed such warnings (which even FEMA leadership apparently didn’t do with Katrina) and the ability to quickly and effectively act on those warnings, both to protect human life and, where possible, minimize damage to property.
The fishing fleet has long appreciated the increasing accuracy of forecasts from the National Weather Service. The network of satellites and better communication has helped keep a lot of the fishing fleet out of harm’s way. The Columbus Day storm of over 40 years ago would not have resulted in losses to the fleet had there been the forecasts that are available today. Although there are not yet ways to accurately predict earthquakes, warning systems for tsunamis that may result have been developed and weather forecasts for hurricanes, tornados, and other forms of extreme weather conditions are now available to us. With increasingly erratic weather patterns these systems save lives.
One of the most important things that can be done to mitigate the affects of a natural disaster is having a long-term preparedness plan. This means anticipation of the worst-case and every possible scenario -- the types of preparation that may take days, weeks, months, even decades, and cannot be done only when there is an impending storm or tidal wave.
Preparedness may mean simply having fuel in the tanks and food aboard. In many of the coastal communities hit by Katrina, in the aftermath the only electricity was from the generators on board those boats that successfully rode out the storm. The only unspoiled food was on those boats. Indeed, the only dry place still intact was aboard those vessels. But even if the boats are prepared and can weather the storm, there’s still the problem of infrastructure -- getting supplies and having a place to offload and store the fish, having transportation to get the fish to market. Perhaps most important after the safety of lives and vessels is having fish to harvest that will not be contaminated somewhere along the chain of commerce.
Preparedness mostly is a long process and requires some foresight. It is in this phase that we learn that many of the recent disasters are not just natural events but also of human origin. Human-caused activities have a way of exacerbating the impacts of many a natural event.
National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists have called Katrina one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the United States. As strong as it was though, the devastation brought on New Orleans and the surrounding areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama had little to do with the strength of the hurricane and everything to do with the long standing policies of levying and resource extraction approved and mandated by the federal government. The federal government first took responsibility for controlling the Mississippi in the 1870’s after the Mississippi River Commission was formed. A representative from Ohio, James A Garfield (later to become the 20th President) remarked that the Mississippi is "one of the grandest of our material national interests in the largest sense of that word and too vast for any authority less than the Nation to handle."
Since then, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been responsible for building and maintaining the levy system that holds the Mississippi in place and pushes its floodwaters into the Gulf of Mexico. This levy system, which encompasses 2,203 miles, ushers these waters, which are heavy with sediment, out into the Gulf of Mexico.
The Mississippi has always carried a high sediment load, and got its nickname “The Big Muddy” for it. Left unrestrained, it emptied over four hundred million tons of sediment each year into the Gulf of Mexico, and was responsible for creating over 5 million acres of wetlands in Louisiana. But, in recent years it has became hard to ignore the drastic wetland loss that is overtaking coastal Louisiana. The loss of wetlands -- areas made up of bayous, marshes, and barrier islands -- which, at the time before Katrina was exceeding the rate of 25 acres a year, was the result of extensive levees, channelization, and petroleum extraction. Before Katrina, Louisiana had already lost roughly half its wetlands that had existed in the early 1900’s.
This wetlands loss coincides with the start of oil exploration and drilling that began in Louisiana in 1901. Nearly a third of all domestic oil production, up to 15 percent of the nation’s foreign oil, and a quarter of its natural gas is produced or transported on Louisiana wetlands. The wetlands are in effect protecting one of the most extensive petroleum infrastructures in the nation. Regional depressurization (when large volumes of oil, gas, and associated formation water are extracted from the subsurface, causing reservoir compaction, which leads to surface subsidence) has accounted, in part, for some of the loss of Louisiana’s coastline. Since the 1950s engineers cut more than 8,000 miles of canals through the marsh for petroleum exploration and ship traffic. These new ditches sliced through the 3 million acres of coastal wetlands (40 percent of the whole total of the lower 48’s wetlands), bringing unhealthy levels of salt water into the brackish and freshwater marshes. This has effected fish populations and wildlife; 75 percent of Louisiana’s commercially harvested fish and shellfish are wetland dependant (see Fisheries, Wetlands and Jobs: The Value of Wetlands to America’s Fisheries (1998), available at: www.pcffa.org/wetlands.pdf.)
This wetlands loss has diminished critical fish habitat and contributed to the dead zone in the Gulf, further affecting fisheries since wetlands act as natural filters. Filtration is extremely critical when it comes to the Mississippi, given the nutrient load of that river carrying fertilizers and other wastes from farms in the nation’s heartland to the Gulf of Mexico. The Pew Oceans Commission (www.pewoceans.org) made this point in its recent report on the clear connection between the nutrient load in the Mississippi, the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico and its effect on Gulf shrimp and fish production. Additionally, this unnatural wetlands loss made the area more vulnerable to hurricanes and floods.
The devastation that occurred from the Boxer Day tsunami in coastal areas of the Indian Ocean was also made much worse in many places due to the loss of mangroves. Coastal mangrove forests are cleared to create shrimp farms to the detriment of the coastline, since mangrove forests serve as natural barriers to storms and tidal waves. The loss of Louisiana’s wetlands likewise eliminated an important natural barrier to hurricanes. So these disasters weren’t so much due to the effects of the forces of nature as they were to the follies of man.
Channelizing the Mississippi made the area, of course, highly dependent on its system of dikes and levees to protect low-lying areas, many well below sea level. The levees that failed were way overdue for repair and upgrades, and were only designed to withstand a Category 3 hurricane at most. Yet earlier this year the Administration diverted over $100 million Congress had appropriated for levee work in and around New Orleans for the Iraq war. Making matters worse the National Guard, which is called in when there are natural disasters or riots, was mostly in Iraq, making the area particularly vulnerable to a break down in civil order that the Guard is usually called in to quell in such circumstances.
It’s not as if the vulnerability of the area to a hurricane and flooding wasn’t known. There were numerous reports indicating the seriousness of the situation. Even the U.S. Commission on Ocean Policy, appointed by the President, in its report issued last year outlined the impact of a Katrina-like hurricane hitting New Orleans and offered comprehensive recommendations to lawmakers on how to deal with and prepare for these natural disasters and other issues (chapter 10, USCOP Report, "Guarding People and Property Against Natural Hazards," at: http://oceancommission.gov/documents/full_color_rpt/10_chapter10.pdf). To date, the USCOP and Pew Ocean Commission recommendations have largely been ignored by the federal government, as were several other reports warning of just such a disaster.
The lack of preparedness, of course, extended far beyond what was necessary to protect lives and minimize property damage. Numerous oil refineries and chemical plants were located right in the pathway of any potential hurricane. It was not unreasonable to expect that a major hurricane hitting such an area would result in oil and chemical spills causing environmental damage far beyond that brought on by wind and floods. Certainly these facilities should have been located in areas not prone to hurricanes or floods, but again no one thought, no one was prepared. The people of the region, and the federal treasury, are now stuck with a clean-up that could take years, including fish kills and contaminated fishing grounds and shellfish beds.
Offshore in the Gulf, many of the 4,000 oil rigs were damaged, and Reuters reported that at least 20 oil platforms were missing right after Katrina hit. The Mobile Register, meanwhile, obtained federal and industry documents showing “the latest design criteria for offshore oil and natural gas platforms require only that these structures withstand winds and seas typical of a borderline Category 2/Category 3 storm, well below the Category 4 and 5 winds that affected Gulf oil fields at least four times in the last five years…….By contrast, the latest International Building Code would require that houses on Dauphin Island be constructed to withstand stronger winds than the offshore platforms are built to withstand -- even though hurricane winds offshore are usually higher than winds near shore…….The implications of these design decisions extend far beyond the oil industry, and include the gasoline price spikes in the days after Katrina, and the spreading oil slicks emanating from multiple platforms in the Gulf………federal officials released reports of at least 64 spills associated with Gulf platforms following Katrina….” The US Coast Guard estimates that about 6.7 million gallons spilled as Katrina flooded oil facilities.
Fisheries and environmental officials have long known that a hit by a Category 3 or stronger hurricane on southern Louisiana could deal a devastating blow to fisheries. The lack of preparedness for major hurricanes in the Gulf came as a shock, yet the Bush Administration, which is close to the oil industry, is now proposing offshore aquaculture structures in these same waters, seemingly oblivious to weather and sea conditions and what they could do to offshore fish farms.
The Gulf Coast may be the most vulnerable of all the U.S. to hurricanes, because of location, but also because of what’s been done to the environment in the form of wetland loss, river channelization and over-dependence on levees, coupled with the many types of industrial activities taking place there. But other areas are highly vulnerable as well. The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is vulnerable to a major earthquake or flood that could wipe out the levees in that system. The State of California has responsibility for these privately owned structures, but important repair work is being systematically underfunded. If this system collapses, it not only places much of California’s drinking water supply at risk, but could have untold effects on the second largest salmon run in the lower 48 and the San Francisco Bay ecosystem that supports major Dungeness crab and herring populations.
The lack of preparedness for so many types of foreseeable disasters has got to be of concern for the fishing industry. One of the obvious aspects of preparedness for a natural disaster in coastal areas is for local officials and government to work with the fishing fleet and make them part of the preparedness program. It’s not as if fishermen and their vessels are strangers to lending aid in a disaster. To date, however, the fishing fleet has not been consulted or made part of any disaster response planning.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), as the press reported, was slow to respond and unprepared for Katrina. Aside from many of its top level personnel having little experience responding to disasters, the agency had largely been gutted when it was moved to the Department of Homeland Security for efforts to combat terrorism. This situation was exacerbated by the initial lack of National Guard troops.
The good will the U.S. built up from past assistance it has provided other nations in times of disaster paid off, however, with many international offers of assistance. The United Nations sent aid with three UN teams working on the ground while its specialized food, health and children's agencies were preparing to send in help through non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Working closely with the US Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), an initial UN presence was established in Atlanta and Baton Rouge. The UN also has a presence in Denton, Texas, with teams working with FEMA’s Regional Coordination Centers. We raise the issue of international help here, because many U.S. fishermen helped provide aid to fishermen who were victims of the Boxer Day tsunami; now some of that good will is being returned.
On September 9th, U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez declared the region between the Texas border to the Florida Keys a federal disaster zone for fisheries. The action was made pursuant to Section 312(a) of the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation & Management Act (16 USC 1861a), and the Inter-Jurisdictional Fisheries Act, which makes funds available for direct assistance to fishermen to alleviate harm resulting from a natural disaster. The Magnuson-Stevens Act makes federal relief funds available to assess the impacts, restore the fisheries, prevent future failure, and assist fishing communities' recovery efforts after a natural disaster. It requires a 25 percent local match. The problem is no monies have yet been appropriated by Congress to provide the relief authorized by the statute.
Administration officials have promised to work with Congress and the Gulf states to develop an emergency response plan. Once funds are in place, the money will go toward assessing the hurricane's effects, restoring fisheries and providing direct assistance to fishermen.
Unfortunately, in all of this, while the Administration has publicly said “it takes responsibility” for the shortcomings of the response to Katrina, beneath the surface the blame game is still going strong. The Department of Justice (egged on by some members of Congress) is looking for a way to blame environmental statutes and conservation groups for the failure of the levee structures. In an internal e-mail, the U.S. Department of Justice asked various U.S. attorneys’ offices to report on any cases they had defended “on behalf of the Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation.” This type of activity is terribly counter-productive. Many of those environmental statutes are in place to protect vital habitats for fish and shellfish and the Justice Department’s actions here appear to be an effort to deflect criticism of the Administration’s own decision to divert the money for levee work to the war effort. This is a helluva way to take responsibility.
A better response is coming from the newly-formed coalition, the Commercial Fishermen of America. CFA, whose goal it is to promote the values and culture of commercial fishing and the coastal communities they support, devoted its 27-29 September meeting to discuss how to assess the needs of Gulf Coast fishermen and how best to respond to those needs. They are especially interested in furthering the role of fishermen in the disaster preparedness and response efforts of local communities.
Finally, fishermen from the affected area are not taking the damage to their fisheries sitting down. A lawsuit was filed by commercial fishermen two weeks after Katrina hit for damages to the fisheries caused by the oil spills. According to an Associated Press report, “the suit, which asks for class-action status, is among at least five filed in federal court against oil companies in hurricane-related cases. Three of the suits are targeted at Murphy Oil Company for a spill at its refinery in Saint Bernard Parish. Another suit blames a long list of oil companies for the loss of wetlands that could have buffered the state from Katrina's devastation…..The fisheries case….. seeks unspecified damages from Shell Pipeline Company, Chevron, Bass Enterprises Production Company and Sundown Energy.”
It is estimated that recovery from Katrina may take years. Recovery is often slow, as many of the fishery victims of the Boxer Day tsunami have found. The federal government has promised upwards of $200 billion in relief for the areas of the country hit by Katrina but without any clear plan for paying for it. Whether the money will actually be forthcoming may depend on the severity of subsequent storms and Congress’ questioning of what exactly the money is going for, how it will be spent, even which companies (e.g., Halliburton, Bechtel) will be granted no-bid contracts for the recovery effort.
Getting the money to help fishermen rebuild is important, including making sure the route that assistance takes is as direct as possible, eliminating those agencies or entities that would place themselves between the funds and fishermen. The fishermen’s organizations have a critical role to play here, helping to connect affected fishermen directly with disaster funds.
It will also be interesting to see whether ideologues in the White House will attempt to use these disasters to advance their own political agendas. In the face of a major disaster, it just seems inappropriate for some in the Administration to attempt to advance their political goals at the expense of Katrina’s victims. For fishermen this is something to be particularly mindful of since the Administration is hot on pushing aquaculture. A careful watch will be needed to assure the funds are used to rebuild traditional fisheries and don’t get diverted for offshore fish farming schemes.
In the recovery following the Boxer Day tsunami, many fishing communities ended up getting displaced, instead of being rebuilt, as governments rushed to construct tourism facilities in the places where fishing villages once stood. We cannot let that happen here. Whether it is to NMFS, the Governor of Mississippi, a local Chamber of Commerce, or whomever, the message from the fishing community has to be clear – no casinos, no tourist hotels, no fish farms where our fishing communities once stood and where they should be rebuilt!
In an effort to make sure recovery efforts involve local citizens, are sensitive to local needs and done to rebuild the area in a way that is environmentally and economically sustainable, more than 100 organizational leaders are organizing the Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition as a non-partisan, non-political collaborative to promote Louisianans in the reconstruction of the Gulf Coast area devastated by Hurricane Katrina. The group has set out for itself a number of innovative and enlightened principles, including:
For more information, contact Cheron Brylski of Rebuilding Louisiana Coalition at cbrylski@aol.com or by calling (504) 897-6152.
At present, fishermen here on the west coast and throughout the nation should focus on providing assistance to their colleagues in the Gulf. That is what is most immediate. But once that assistance has been rendered, we need to take heed of the lessons from Katrina and the Boxer Day tsunami before it. We forget these events at our own peril.
A disaster can strike nearly anywhere and as we’ve seen the impacts are seldom local. We need to be prepared, but we also need to be smart. It’s not enough just to have spare batteries for flashlights and portable radios, fuel in the boat’s tanks and food on board, but to begin looking at what steps can be taken in the short term and over the long term to minimize damage from a natural event, eliminating as far as possible unnatural human sources of disasters. We must be vigilant against disaster profiteers or those seeking to advance their ideologies or political agendas at the expense of victims. Finally we need to be sure our donations and tax dollars go to those who are deserving, and are spent in a wise and prudent manner.
Pietro Parravano, a commercial fisherman from Half Moon Bay, California, is a member of the Pew Oceans Commission and President of the Institute for Fisheries Resources. Sara Randall is the Program Director for the Institute for Fisheries Resources and is assisting in the formation of the Commercial Fishermen of America. Zeke Grader is an attorney and Executive Director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. All can be reached at PCFFA’s San Francisco Office at PO Box 29370, San Francisco, CA 94129-0370, (415)561-5080 or by email to: fish4ifr@aol.com.
The following are some of the fishermen’s organizations that have set up specific funds to assist fishermen victims of Katrina:
Hurricane Katrina Fishermen’s Relief Fund c/o Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance: 200 Main Street, Suite A, Saco, ME 04072 Telephone: (207) 284-5374 or (508) 945-2432
UCFA Displaced Fisherman's Fund 940 Stanford Ave, Apt. 405, Baton Rouge, LA 70808, Telephone: (504) 439-2013
Hurricane Katrina Fishermen’s Relief Fund North Carolina Fisheries Association P.O. Box 12303 New Bern, NC 28561, Telephone: (252) 633-2288
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