The Oyster Lottery

The Times-Picayune provides in-depth coverage regarding the state's oyster leases. There are multiple stories, so each is linked with its introductory sentence:

Shell Games
Before he died in 1972, Eugenia Poirrier's husband took out a pair of state oyster leases in the salty waters of Breton Sound off the Plaquemines Parish coastline. It may have been the best insurance policy he ever purchased.

Affixing Value to Beds a Slippery Affair
If there's one oyster lease in Louisiana worth more than $20,000 per acre, industry leaders say it's Nick Skansi's property near Port Sulphur, a lease so productive it has earned the nickname "Skansi's Gold Mine."

Bills Aim to Hold Oyster Suits in Check
In an attempt to prevent lawsuits over oyster leases from derailing coastal restoration efforts, the Louisiana Senate is preparing to debate a package of measures this week to limit damage claims from those affected by attempts to slow erosion, rebuild shorelines or protect towns from hurricanes.

Oil Industry Pumps up Oyster Farms
For some people who lease oyster beds from the state, their property can be worth more dead than alive.

Oyster Farmers Initially Backed Project
Breton Sound was a bad place for oyster farmers in the late 1980s. Oysters were dying throughout the basin, consumed by rapacious schools of saltwater predators such as black drum and conch, and decimated by diseases that left their meat black in the shell.

Posted by AJR at May 4, 2003 10:45 PM