2 Mobile area men arrested for illegal nighttime oyster harvesting

MOBILE, Al.
State conservation enforcement officers arrested two men early Fri. morning on numerous charges ranging from drug possession to the illegal harvest of thousands of pounds of oysters.

Allen Liddle Lee                      Michael Donald Sowa

Michael Donald Sowa, 39, of Bayou La Batre, and Allen Liddle Lee, 32, of Mobile, were booked into Mobile County Metro Jail and had been released on bail by noon.
The men were caught at 3:45 a.m. yesterday, said Capt. Bo Willis, who along with other Alabama Marine Resources Division officers had been investigating complaints from others in the fishing industry about illegal harvesting of oysters at night. Oyster season is also closed.
Willis said officers watched the men launch a boat into Fowl River at 9:30 Thursday night, then attempted to follow them upon their return at about 3:30 Friday morning.
Willis said the men were allowed to return to the launch so they couldn’t dump any illegally harvested oysters back into the water before being apprehended, and also in hopes they’d lead officers to the processing shop where the men were believed to be selling them.
When the men left in Sowa’s truck without turning on the headlights, Willis said officers in pursuit lost them.
He said earlier phases of the investigation had already established Lee’s involvement, so other officers went to his house off Bellingrath Road and found the men there. From Lee’s boat they retrieved 21 full sacks of oysters totaling 2,100 pounds. Under Alabama’s definition of a legal sack of oysters, Willis said those amounts actually translate into about 31 sacks.
The oysters had been tonged from a reef located about halfway between the mouth of East Fowl River and the Relay Reef, Willis said.
The men face various conservation charges, including oystering without a license, over the limit, improperly sacked oysters, transporting oysters at night, improperly identified oysters and failure to tag oysters prior to landing.
Lee was charged with five conservation violations in addition to possession of a controlled substance and possession of drug paraphernalia, according to jail records.
Lee was booked into Metro Jail at 7:02 a.m. Friday and released at 11:31 a.m., with a combined bail set at $4,500, records showed.
Sowa was charged with seven conservation charges in addition to possession of a controlled substance, according to jail records.
Sowa was booked into Metro Jail at 6:37 a.m. and released at 10:19 a.m., with a combined bail set at $4,600, records showed.
While talking to Lee and Sowa, Willis said the men indicated they were considering shucking the oysters themselves, then trying to sell them at a higher price than they would get if selling them whole.
Willis said authorities believe the men have participated in other illegal harvests.
“There were others involved at other times, but Lee seems to be the common denominator because it’s his boat,” Willis said.
Potential damage

Oystermen were getting about 35 cents a pound for whole oysters tonged during the last regulated harvest from the Relay Reef in 2011. On the open market, shucked oysters can sell for $50 to $70 a gallon, depending on each oyster’s yield and where it came from, according to Marine Resources Division Enforcement Chief Maj. Scott Bannon.
If Lee and Sowa had been successful in their plan, Bannon said a far-reaching problem could have been set off for the entire Gulf of Mexico oyster industry.
“The backyard opener is detrimental to the entire industry along the Gulf Coast, due to the health risks associated with not handling the product properly,” Bannon said. “These oysters that are processed illegally, mishandled and misidentified could get on the open market. If people start getting sick, then you could have the wrong state looked at and getting penalized. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) could not only shut down Alabama, but they actually could shut down the entire Gulf Coast.”
As an example, Bannon cited a case several years ago in which the Mississippi oyster industry was shut down after a person died after eating oysters shipped to a New York restaurant.
He said that even though it was eventually determined that the oysters had not caused the person’s death, the closure resulted in a multimillion-dollar loss to the state’s oyster industry.
Willis said one of the oyster-filled sacks found on the boat actually had a Louisiana tag on it.
Alabama Marine Resources Director Chris Blankenship said he was angry to think that local oystermen could have been crippled by the men’s actions. He added that great strides have been made over the past few years by those in the industry working with Marine Resources to revive the state’s ailing oyster reefs and increase annual regulated harvests.
“I’m glad these guys were caught, because it’s not fair to the guys out there helping to create a viable reef system to support the industry again in Alabama,” Blankenship said. “We’re working with the FDA now to reclassify an area from restricted to open near where these oysters were taken. If oysters taken illegally here make it onto the market and people start getting sick, it could be devastating to the oyster industry in Alabama.”
Conservation officers deposited the oysters back onto the reefs, Willis said.
“The investigation into additional complaints of illegal harvesting and the processing shops buying these oysters is continuing,” Willis said.