Port Isabel witnesses decline of shrimping industry

PORT ISABEL — About 40 years ago, Carlton Reyes launched his first boat from the port that helped make this stretch of coastline the shrimping capital of the world.

“At the time a lot of people were getting into the business,” said Reyes, president of the Brownsville-Port Isabel Shrimp Producers Association. “It was something you could make money on.”

By 2001, his fleet had grown to six boats.

“At the time we had a bigger share of the market,” Reyes said.

But in 2004, an influx of imported shrimp coupled with soaring diesel costs led to a collapse of the industry that once fueled the area’s economy.

Since then, the number of shrimp boats launched out of Port Isabel and Brownsville dropped from about 320 to 135, Reyes said.

“It’s hard for all of us,” Reyes said. “That’s why so many people have gotten out of it.”

A deluge of frozen shrimp flooded the local market from China, Vietnam, Thailand, Ecuador and Brazil, driving prices from about $4 a pound in 2004 to as low as $1.75 last year, Reyes said.

During the same period, diesel costs climbed from about 80 cents per gallon to $2.30 a gallon, he said.

This year, local shrimp prices rebounded to about $3.25 a pound after the massive oil spill marred the shrimping industry along the upper Gulf Coast, boosting demand for shrimp caught off the shores of deep South Texas, Reyes said.

“Our biggest expense right now is fuel. We’re paying triple what we did six years ago,” Reyes said. “We’re not making money to go to the bank any more. We make enough to survive.”

This summer, the Port Isabel-San Benito Navigation District joined the Texas General Land Office in a project to cut 32 old shrimp boats into scrap, said Bob Cornelison, the port’s director.

“My concern is that if we got a big storm in, the boats could sink and cause an environmental disaster,” Mayor Joe Vega said.

Cornelison calls the project a testament of state of the shrimping industry.

“It was the largest fleet in the world, and the end game, if you’re lucky, is to sell the boat. But there’s no buyers,” Cornelison said. “Most of these vessels have been tied here for five or seven years.”

In Port Isabel, the shrimping industry fueled the economy for decades, Vega said.

“That was the economic engine. Many people in the area made their living off this industry,” Vega said. “This is an industry that made the city of Port Isabel and the Port of Brownsville the shrimping capital of the world.”

Now, the city counts on tourism to revive its economy, Vega said.

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Fernando Del Valle is a reporter for the Valley Morning Star in Harlingen.