Mobile Bay Blog

From Press Register: 

By Ben Raines

March 03, 2010, 9:01AM

MOBILE, Ala. -- An ambitious plan to relocate 6 million pounds of oysters from the upper half of Mobile Bay to create a new, 800-acre public reef farther south will begin March 15, officials announced Tuesday in Bayou La Batre.

Oystermen said the program would save their livelihood -- devastated since Hurricane Katrina by a rapacious marine conch known as the oyster drill and by the opposing forces of drought and excessive rainfall.

Beginning March 15, most of the 200 boats licensed to harvest oysters in Alabama waters are expected to begin tonging on a long-closed reef near the mouth of Fowl River on Mobile Bay. Oysters will be deposited on barges, then hauled south to the new reef site, a 3-mile stretch halfway between Fowl River and Alabama Point.

The Fowl River reef was closed more than 25 years ago because of water quality concerns. Testing in the 1990s found elevated levels of certain contaminants in oyster meat from the upper bay, particularly DDT.

"Previously, all the waters north of Fowl River were classified as prohibited, meaning no one could harvest there. After a yearlong process working with the FDA and the Alabama Department of Health, this area was reclassified," said John Mareska, a biologist the Division of Marine Resources. "The oyster tissue has been tested for heavy metals and other contaminants, and they were below action levels."

Mareska said the problematic contaminants around Fowl River today have more to do with bacteria associated with sewage instead of industrial pollutants. That means oysters there can be moved to open water farther south, allowed to "cleanse themselves" for 21 days, then harvested.

Oystermen will be paid $11 per tub of oysters they tong up. A tub typically weighs about 60 pounds and contains what would be about six pints of shucked oysters. The money comes from an emergency disaster relief program associated with Hurricane Katrina, which struck nearly five years ago.

"It's federal money," Mareska said, adding that state officials will be on hand to ensure the Fowl River reef is not completely depleted.

Avery Bates, who often speaks for the state's oystering fleet, said the new reef would allow Alabama's oystermen to come home.

"Our guys have been having to work in other states to earn a living. Our reefs have all been closed, essentially since Katrina," Bates said. "This is a way to help the farmers of the sea stay in business."

Bates pointed to the oyster drill as the primary problem with the Cedar Point reefs that surround the Dauphin Island bridge.

Prolonged drought, coupled with other environmental changes, allowed the saltwater drills to proliferate unchecked for several years. Typically, large amounts of fresh water washes into the bay in the spring, killing most of the drills.

The new reef site maintains lower salinity levels year-round, hopefully mitigating the drill problem.

In the end, it was nearly impossible to find a live oyster on the state's largest and most productive reef. Bates said the reefs left in the bay today represent a fraction of what was there in 1910.

"The washing away of the barrier islands, the ship channel going from 35 feet to 50 feet, the changing of salinity due to Georgia and Alabama holding back so much water in the dams -- all those things have meant more saltwater in the bay, which allowed the drills to thrive over the years," Bates said. "Now, we're worried about all the fresh water we've had. Too much fresh water can kill the oysters themselves."

Rates for policyholders of Alabama's insurer of last resort will go up 5.5 percent on average, beginning July 1, the Alabama Insurance Underwriting Association said in a letter dated Tuesday.

Rates are going up in Mobile, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Fort Morgan and Dauphin Island, while they will decline in south Mobile County, the Eastern Shore, and areas of south Baldwin County including Magnolia Springs, Perdido Beach, Josephine, Elberta and Lillian. They'll stay flat elsewhere in Mobile and Baldwin.

The group, commonly known as the Beach Pool, charged $2,173 on average for a residential policy at the end of April. A 5.5 percent increase would bump that by $120 to $2,293.

Individual customers will see rates change at their annual renewal. Changes will vary based on location and type of construction.

Manager Bob Groves said that models showed that the pool's risks had increased as it grew to more than 11,700 policies in Mobile and Baldwin counties, and it needed to charge higher rates.

"We believe the rate change we are implementing is very modest," he said.

The pool initially applied to the Alabama Insurance Department for a 7.4 percent increase, but cut its request during regulatory talks.

The Beach Pool passes on much of its risk to firms that do business elsewhere in the state but shun the coast. It writes bare-bones policies.

Hardest hit will be customers in Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Fort Morgan and Dauphin Island, who will see rates increase by 9.9 percent.

State regulators capped the increase for any single policyholder at 15 percent. The pool plans to impose the maximum on 1,575 customers, more than 13 percent of its policyholders.

The pool has traditionally used three rating zones, but a fourth zone consisting solely of the Mobile city limits was added along with the rate changes. Groves said that was meant to match the pool's territories more closely with those used by the Insurance Services Office, a group that draws zones for carriers.

Rates in Mobile will go up 5 percent on average. But for more than 400 policyholders in the area south of Interstate 10, rates should fall substantially, Groves said.

Pool board member Jay Ison, a Mobile insurance agent, said the group has taken on many older homes in Mobile. "That zone needed a rate increase because of a higher concentration of risk," he said.

Mobile had almost 20 percent, or 2,198, of the pool policies at the end of April, the most of any city but Gulf Shores. Mobile traditionally made up a much smaller share of the policy total.

Charges will go down 3.3 percent in the rest of south Mobile County's mainland and in parts of Baldwin including the Eastern Shore, Magnolia Springs, Perdido Beach, Josephine, Elberta and Lillian.

Gulf Shores resident and former State Farm employee Davey Jones, who pays the pool more than $3,000 a year for wind coverage alone, said he doesn't understand the need for an increase, considering the pool hasn't faced any major hurricanes since 2005. He said he'd like a more public explanation of how the pool spends its $26 million in premium income.

The Beach Pool will spend most of this year's premiums, almost $15 million, on reinsurance. Reinsurance prices rose this year, and the pool is buying less coverage than in 2008, leaving member firms more at risk.

After the member companies pay for the first $100 million in losses, reinsurance would cover the next $235 million. Al Carlson, a spokesman for All Churches Together, or ACT-II, which lobbies for more affordable insurance, said the increases are a "wake-up call" to policyholders who hoped rates would drop or stay level.

Gulf Shores Mayor Robert Craft, the lone member of the 11-person pool board who doesn't work in the insurance business, took a leave of absence from the panel starting in January as he recovered from brain surgery, and wasn't part of rate increase talks. It's doubtful, though, that his lone vote or protest would have made a difference.

"As mayor, it certainly is not good news for our city," Craft said. "Unfortunately, I don't know how you fight it."

Raising Cain!

A Brief Story of Joe Cain

The civil war had halted all revelry. Joseph Stillwell Cain was a store clerk in Mobile, Alabama in 1865, who had noticed how much the war had mentally worn down the populace. He, like most of his fellow Mobilians, were still under Union occupation, but the mental war between the ex-confederate soldiers and union authorities  still raged and was taking a toll. During the occupation several edicts had come down from Union leaders in an effort to totally break the the will of the the Mobilians. To make matters worse, finding themselves "men without a country" following the end of the Civil War, members of any branch of the Confederate forces were forced to sign "Amnesty oaths", to restore their citizenship rights.

  After all, these were the people and soldiers that kept Union forces at bay, even after the battle and fall of Mobile Bay to the Union Navy in 1864. During the "bread riot of 1863, and the Union blockade which substantially reduced the trade in Mobile for the duration of the war, its people endured.  Disruption of foreign trade persisted after the war, as Union occupying forces, which took the city of Mobile in April 1865, closed the port to foreign trade until late in August 1865.

 Joe Cain knew however, that to openly voice any opposition to the occupation of Mobile by the Union troops would be viewed technically, as treason. The mental drain, however, had to be stopped, and the spirit and pride of the Mobilians has to be restored.

It was against this back drop that Cain, in 1866, decided the best way to accomplish this renaissance of the spirit, was to revitalize the Kraft parade, the celebration of Mardi Gras in Mobile, which had been halted during the conflict. One night, he led a group of revelers in a parade through the city, using a "borrowed" coal wagon and dressed in improvised costumes depicting a Chickasaw Indian chief from the local Wragg Swamp, he called himself Chief Slacabamorinico. The significance of choosing this character was a backhanded insult to the Union forces as the Chickasaw, had never surrendered during the civil war. He mocked the union military that controlled Mobile at the time.

 This celebration gave the Mobilians a much needed boost, when the Union leadership learning of the, "one horse stunt" were furious at the man, but couldn't touch him because he had voiced no opposition.  

  In 1867, Cain reappeared, this time with a group of confederate soldiers, who were also musicians, calling themselves the Lost Cause Minstrels (and they paraded until 1879).

The parade continued to give Mobile back it's spirit and pride and allowed the city to hold its collective head up, and continue to progress and to some degree, move on. 

Joe Cain is currently buried at Church Street Cemetery in Mobile, Alabama. 

The Joe Cain Procession was started in 1967 by a local folk singer, historian, writer named Julian Rayford. He wanted to bring recognition to the man who revived Mardi Gras activities in Mobile. Julian Rayford dressed as Chief Slacabamorinico in his coal wagon. Cain's Merry Widows follow, a mysterious group of women in black, throwing black roses and Mardi Gras beads. The number of participating groups has grown over the years, now at 32 (a limit set by the Mobile Police Dept.). Julian Rayford also petitioned for Joe Caine and his wife's body to be moved from Bayou La Batre to the Church Street Graveyard in downtown Mobile, which has been closed to new burials since 1898. Julian Rayford died in 1980, and his body was buried right next to Joe Cain's. After the Joe Cain Procession, Cain's Merry Widows partake in a Mardi Gras funeral at the grave site of Joe Cain. Weeping, dancing and tossing beads in memory of Joe Cain.