Temp Worker Shortage Hurting MD Crab Business

Jack Brooks owner of J.M. Clayton Seafood in Dorchester County talks to WBAL's Anne Kramer about how difficult it is to find workers this season.

[Suzanne Gilmour]

When you use the phrase "labor shortage" or "talent shortage" you're speaking in a sentence fragment. What you actually have to say is: "There is a labor shortage at the low salary level I'm willing to pay." That statement is the correct phrase; the complete sentence, the intellectually honest statement.

If you raise your wages and improve working conditions enough, you'll have people lining up around the block to work for you even if you need to have huge piles of steaming manure hand-scooped on a blazing summer afternoon.

[CCBay]

It is not so much the labor shortage that is and has hurt the Chesapeake Bay. That is unless your vision is short term only. Read more about the problem(s) with the Chesapeake Bay below:

There is a lot of concern that bacteria in the Chesapeake Bay is caused by runoff from chicken manure that was/is stacked on property alongside chicken houses. I have read were Mr. Perdue (and there may be other chicken processors) is processing chicken manure, produced on Perdue chicken farms, into fertilizer. Scientists tell us that this process does help to eliminate the bacteria runoff caused by untreated chicken manure left on land of chicken growing farmland.

There is a lot of concern that some of the causes of the growth of algae and the effects to other aquatic life that are feed by fertilizer, insecticides, and ammonia runoff from farmland that is artificially fertilized. Industrial and manmade pollution are being brought under control and are being minimized by EPA and other clean water practices and enforcement policies.

However, what the Chesapeake Bay and surrounding tributaries are really noted for, other than "The Land of Pleasant Living", is its (once) abundant seafood. Did any of you know that at one time the Chesapeake Bay was cleansed partially by the action of oysters?

Scientists and biologists have written that, a few decades or so ago, oysters/byvalves pumped the entire Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries – waters - through their bodies once every few hours. I read a year ago that scientists and biologists estimate that the oyster population on the bay and its tributaries is so low that the pumping action is now every 3 - 5 days. In effect, this action does help to cleanse the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Please note that although this oyster pumping action helped/helps it is the not the entire answer to clean water.

A few decades ago one could pole push a skiff over 1 to 2 feet of water on the Chesapeake Bay and/or its tributaries and, in a reasonable number of hours/time, net dozens of crabs of all sizes and gender to include soft shell crabs. Today if you were to pole push a skiff along the shallow waters and were to happen upon any crab you would probably point and say something like "Oh look, there is a crab". And then just push on.

Want to see something unbelievable? Travel to any of the crab processing plants in Dorchester County when the plant managers arrange for “sponge crab” to be brought in from Virginia or North Carolina waters - by the tractor and trailer load(s). And see for yourself the tons/thousands of female egg bearing "sook" or "sponge crab" that is steamed and later the crab meat extracted or processed. The estimated two-million crab eggs per "sponge crab" are killed in the steaming process - that is if the eggs survive the trip to crab processing plants in Maryland. And you might want to know how long has this practice been happening? Well my answer is...I do not really know exactly how long, but I have witnessed this 50 of my 59 years!

I have read where most of the egg hatching takes place in the waters of the southern end of the Chesapeake Bay. There where the water is saltier, warm, the bottom is soft – is where most of the crabs like to lay their fertilized eggs to hatch. It is here that tons/millions of the “sponge crab” are caught and sent to Maryland seafood processing plants while the unborn crab – in their eggs - are still attached to the “sook” or “sponge crab”.

Stop and think – is there anything that you need/want to do to help “Save the Bay?”