'You can say that we're the only farmers who don't like rain.'
“You can say that we’re the only farmers who don’t like rain,” Neal Maloney, the owner of Morro Bay Oyster Co., told theHis company typically harvests about 1 million Pacific Gold oysters a year. But thanks to the rain, it’s unclear whether Morro Bay Oyster Co. will reach that number this year. January storms have already affected Maloney’s operations: He said that he hadn’t been able to harvest for about two weeks because of the rain.
And that’s on top of the difficulties his company has faced throughout the pandemic, with several restaurants that bought Morro Bay Oyster Co. mollusks closing in the past few years. “It’s like a three-year recovery,” Maloney said. “We were already kind of in a limited capacity, so to take any kind of hit right now is not a good time.”
The current issue is that the heavy rainfall results in runoff from agricultural fields and homes, which can increase the bacteria count in the water, John Finger, the CEO and co-founder of Hog Island Oyster Co., told theDepending on how much rain falls and how much water levels rise, oyster farmers are required by the California health department to wait a number of days before retesting bacteria levels.
In the interim, though, the oyster farmers aren’t able to carry out their business, and that could become the norm, some worry. Strong storms may occur more regularly due to climate change, threatening California’s oyster industry in the years to come. “This is one of the things we were pretty sure was going to happen: more intense storms,” Finger said. “That’s what we’re going to have to get used to.”
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