CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — District 32 State Representative Todd Hunter is ready to help our local shrimpers who are facing a number of financial issues.
"We’ve had fuel costs that have been a big hit and we’ve had some other costs that have impacted the shrimping industry," Hunter said.
A state committee will meet this summer to try and come up with a solution to some of those growing hardships shrimpers face.
"One of the things that is going to be looked at is federal and state, is their some partnerships, cooperation? Is their a source of funding which may be able to help them," Hunter said.
Our state shrimping industry generates about $500 million to our economy every year. It supports about 5,400 jobs and 25 percent of shrimp in the U.S. comes from our coastal waters.
However, cheap imported shrimp has flooded the market and the state wants to make sure it doesn’t collapse our shrimp industry.
Folks we spoke with say they want their shrimp from the Gulf.
"I don’t eat enough shrimp to know foreign versus Gulf shrimp, if there’s a big difference, but as far as the economy goes and economics go I would prefer to buy locally,” said Alaina Scher, visiting from Austin.
The state committee will also look at the impact of all that imported shrimp on our domestic shrimp population along with public safety and health. What they discover will then be turned into bills that will be written up and ready for lawmakers when they start their next session in January.
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