Looking out his window at Galveston Bay last week, Raz Halili, sales manager for Prestige Oysters in San Leon, saw water that looked like a melted chocolate bar – distastrous for oysters.
"I don't see how they can survive through this," said Halili. "There's just too much fresh water."
The surge of silt-choked floodwater runoff into Galveston Bay upsets the balance of fresh and salt water that oysters need to thrive. The Texas oyster industry supplies about 30 percent of all oysters harvested in the Gulf of Mexico. Halili, whose family runs Prestige, one of the nation's leading oyster distributors, predicts there will be shortages in upcoming harvests – perhaps as bad, if not more so, than after Hurricane Ike.
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