February 27, 2009 1:41 am

One Dollar A Bushel Threatens Shellfish Jobs

I’m really having trouble understanding how a $1 a bushel tax will cause hundred of jobs to be lost.� How many Oysters are in a bushel anyways?

The lay of the sea:

Today, more than 70,000 acres of shellfish farms are under cultivation in Connecticut’s coastal waters… farms that harvest millions of pounds of oysters, clams and other shellfish every year from Long Island Sound and the lower Connecticut River.

The cultivation, propagation and harvesting of clams and oysters along the state’s 250-mile coastline is often a family affair. Case in point is Norm Bloom and Son in Norwalk. Owned by Norman Bloom and operated in conjunction with his son, daughter and wife, among others, the business was established in the late 1940s by Bloom’s father and uncle. Bloom has been involved since the late 1970s.

Explaining that shellfish farming is a year-round business in Connecticut, Bloom noted Norm Bloom and Son harvests approximately 200 bushels of clams and eastern, aka bluepoint, oysters per day.

“Most people don’t realize that Connecticut shellfish farming is not confined to warm weather months,” he observed. “Although local oysters are most prevalent during the months containing the letter ‘r’ [i.e. September, January, March], they are available year-round, as are clams. But in July, when the oysters are spawning, clams dominate.”

In addition to owning Norm Bloom and Son, Bloom is a partner in Dolan Brothers Shellfish in Branford. Co-owner Art Dolan indicated his company works year-round as well, netting an average 300 bushels of hard clams and 100-150 bushels of oysters per week. Dolan’s venture is also multi-generational; it was founded by his father and uncle about five decades ago.

So Governor Rell wants to charge $1 a bushel to offset the the oversight and DEP regulations that govern the industry. Will a few extra pennies, ultimately passed along the the consumer stop people from eating Connecticut shelfish? According to oyster connoisseurs, Connecticut’s bluepoint is the world’s premium oyster.

UPDATE: The Advocate provides more details on the issue:

In January, the state Bureau of Aquaculture decided after 40 years to reassess the values on 22,422 acres of franchised shellfish beds off the Connecticut shoreline, boosting the formula from $30 to $200 per acre.

That, in turn, increased the annual taxes oyster and clam harvesters pay the state from 60 cents per acre to $4; they had paid the lower rate since the last assessment in 1968.

The impact on the taxes for the beds has more merit to it, but no uptick in valuation since 1968?

John Frank

Another new tax on commercial shellfish farming is ridiculous and will put people out of business. They are already taxed for the acreage they use by the state and by the towns where the beds are. The state raised that 666 %, or five million dollars a year more tax, on a struggling industry. The local property tax on commercial waterfront business space is very high. They pay tax on boat fuel and run the boats every day. This is a terrible time to be forced to raise the price of their produce. People don’t splurge on oysters in a depressed economy.
This tax unfairly targets Norwalk and a small number of coastal towns.
Let those damn politicians

Go out and work a week on a boat which is on its way before dawn. These folks work like animals to make a living, but Madoff stole BILLIONS and is still lounging in his mansion. If this is the most wasteful thing Connecticut has to tax to make ends meet. We are truly screwed, blued and tattooed.
John Frank

I can arrange for governor Rell to get out on an oyster boat and see for herself how much time and effort goes into it.
The owners of these boats are already very heavily taxed, and their profits, when they have profits, are taxed by the State and the Federal government as income.
I have to wonder how much profit she thinks they average now on a bushel of oysters or clams. I’m sure some of the smaller operators very seldom have any substantial profit at the end of the year. Norwalk has seen a lot of shellfish companies go out of business.
Hard work VS Hollywood

Maybe we should tell those movie makers that their 30% tax breaks from the state and cities will instead be going to the people with struggling business here. Boy have we got our priorities bass ackwards.

Bring in out of towner’s and sink the local businessman.

I would not want to be the one to face a commercial fisherman here in Connecticut and tell him that buck a bushel is going toward financing a tax break for the movie studios.

turfgrrl

Hard work VS Hollywood: The whole point of the tax credit is to create local jobs, which it does. And yes, those jobs are a little more complex than digging for clams, or hauling lobster pots out of the sound. The future of Connecticut’s economic growth is not in commercial fishing.

Not so sure about this…

TG, the filming I saw did not really create much in the way of local jobs. Crew was production company from NYC; meals catered by their NY-based caterer. My understanding of the union rules are that we are the outer perimeter of what is considered commuting distnace for the crew — so overnghts are not part of the deal. Except for location fees and maybe some police overtime, I didn’t see a lot of money going to Norwalk’s businesses. Maybe the city can build some more of that into the permits…or maybe having studios and production companies out here will fill that need. I’m not agin’ it; I just want to make sure that it is really worth it for Norwalk.

turfgrrl

Not so sure about this: Admittedly, Connecticut didn’t have a huge base of film crew companies on hand, for productions to tap into. But you need the demand to foster the investment in taking that say, catering place that does events, and turning into one that can handle the film shoot. Norwalk is taking a proactive approach though, the Arts Commission has started a film subcommittee where we had representatives from industries like security, lighting, and catering present to work on making Norwalk more film production friendly, post production as well as location production.

John Frank

Tax break for film production companies will probably pay off for the State, if we stick to it a while.
Commercial shellfish farming is a much bigger industry than you know and labor intensive. A lot of local jobs depend on it. The profit is not all that great and another dollar a bushel would force the wholesale price up and that would push the retail up. Right now is a very bad time to consider pushing prices up. The only time it might make sense is when people are spending freely. Even then, this a very targeted tax that only effects a few coastal communities with Norwalk taking the biggest hit.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am on the Norwalk Shellfish Commission.
turfgrrl

John Frank: Okay I’ll bite. How many oysters/clams are in a bushel? I ask, because while I’m not a shellfish eater, I am a steak eater. And steaks have risen quite a bit lately. Whether its been taxes, or production costs, or the Atkins diet is irrelevant. At a certain price jump, I say ouch, I’m going to eat something else. But when I want a steak, then that’s what I eat. That price jump is exactly a dollar, so it’s a dollar to me. But with shellfish, is a bushel a serving?
anon

Issue is not really how many oysters in a bushel but what the additional tax does to the profit per bushel — which is I’m pretty sure fairly thin.
John Frank

The standard now is a bag of 100 oysters, not a bushel. How many you eat at one time is a serving and that varies all over the place depending on if they are an appetizer or the main course.
Norm Bloom & Sons website lists a retail bag at $45. Wholesale is obviously less and a very small part was profit before the state raised the tax on the beds 666%. I don’t really know if there is any profit left now without raising prices. Oysters are considered a special part of a meal for special ocasions and people are cutting way back on buying, at current prices.
Raising prices during a recession will drive away more customers. Some of the smaller operations will surely go out of business.
Commercial shellfishing is a much bigger industry than you know and supports many familiies in Norwalk. This link will bring you to dept of agriculture shellfish production statistics. It is clear this is already a very cyclical business. Unfortunately, it only shows production in CT up to 2006. The last couple of years have been very productive in this area for oysters, but I don’t have the numbers.

http://www.ct.gov/doag/cwp/view.asp?a=1369&q=271358
Rob Norrholm

This tax is extremely unfair. I just graduated high school and I’m working in this industry for my grandfather out of Norwalk, CT. and this tax will take a huge toll on this industry. what the politician’s do not see is that along with this dollar tax we have to take in a account for other things such as:

Boat fuel (diesel, motor oil etc)
Supplies (bags, rope, etc)
Payroll for crew
maintenance
Lease payments

Another thing is that they don’t consider every bag that we bring into the dock a bushel and that’s incorrect Little necks, Top neck, Cherry stones, Chowders, and also Oysters that are processed into the bags to be sold are portions of a bushel.

This industry is struggling at this point because no one wants to go out to eat or buy seafood at local supermarkets and taxing us will just make it worse and i guarantee layoffs will happen.

Our lots that we lease from the state and towns the money spent for them went up 5 times from last year and that just also helps dig that hole for us to sit in.

I agree, Gov. Rell should go out of one of these boats and see what we do out here this job is very labor intensive and we work hard to produce the product from long island sound, maybe this will make rethink considering this bill.