Gulf's oyster loss is Long Island's gain

The Gulf oil spill has benefited Long Island oyster producers and suppliers, who say they have been getting orders from new customers all over the country in the months since the BP well erupted earlier this year.

"They're just looking for whatever they can get," said Christa Relyea, a spokeswoman at Frank M. Flower and Sons, a large oyster producer in Oyster Bay.

Many of the Gulf oyster beds remain closed and a federal report released last week indicated that the spill's impact on oysters and other seafood from that region is still being determined.

Roughly 75 percent of the oyster beds off the coast of Louisiana, the Gulf's largest oyster producing state, are still closed, according to Olivia Watkins, spokeswoman for the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.

Closures and lingering questions about the safety of Gulf oysters have led to increased national demand and higher prices for oysters harvested in other parts of the country, growers said.

Tom Kehoe, president of K & B Seafood in East Northport and the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, said in addition to increased national demand this summer, he's gotten calls from new buyers, mostly from the South, looking to position themselves in case Gulf oyster production doesn't fully recover in the fall. "They want to have their marker down. It's a wait-and-see approach."

Because oysters are stationary and do not migrate from polluted waters, they are more susceptible to contamination, said Randy Pausina, assistant secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries. Since oysters are eaten whole, contaminated ones pose a serious health threat to consumers.

Long Island accounts for most of New York's oysters, but the state is not a major producer. In 2008, New York accounted for only 135,000 of the more than 35 million pounds of oysters harvested nationally, according to National Marine Fisheries Service statistics. Roughly 60 percent of the country's oysters that year came from the Gulf.

Long Island and the Gulf produce the same species of oyster, the eastern oyster, but Gavin Gibbons, spokesman for the National Fisheries Institute, a seafood trade group, said differences in the water make each unique. "The Gulf oyster is an iconic American oyster," he said. "There's no substitute."

Karen Rivara, owner of Aeros Cultured Oyster Co. in Southold, said she's experienced increased demand since the spill for her oyster seed, which accounts for more of her Long Island business than fully mature oysters.

"I think people are looking two years ahead," she said.

While the entire mid-Atlantic growing region, which includes New York, is seeing price increases of 25 percent to 30 percent wholesale for oysters, diners should not see any hikes at local establishments - at least in the short term, restaurateurs say.

"You want that to be the absolute last resort, to raise a price," said Cornelius Gallagher, corporate chef for the Bohlsen Restaurant Group, which owns H20 in Smithtown, Tellers in Islip and Prime in Huntington, among others.

But Gallagher said continued price increases could lead him to remove oysters from the menus at his restaurants.

It can take up to three years for oysters to develop to market size, which means that oyster supply can't easily be increased to meet higher demand.

Supply concerns led national restaurant chain Red Lobster to remove oysters from its menus in late June.

While the seafood industry on Long Island may profit in the short term from the spill, Kehoe said he hopes the Gulf oyster industry recovers quickly.

"These are all friends of ours," he said. "No one is looking to gain or profit from their misery."