Brine shrimp 'prawns' in trade fight

WASHINGTON — Brine shrimp from the Great Salt Lake are becoming prawns (pun intended) in a nasty international trade fight — and a Utah congressional candidate is trying to protect the Utah jobs they create.

"Why is a guy from Utah who represents the so-called 'sea monkey' industry coming here to talk about the shrimp trade case involving Asians and Southern shrimpers? Utahns have a significant stake in this debate," Tim Bridgewater, a 2nd District GOP House candidate and spokesman for the Utah Artemia (brine shrimp) Association, said Thursday.

He was part of a coalition of restaurant, grocery store and consumer groups unveiled at the National Press Club to fight trade claims by some Southern U.S. shrimp boaters asserting that Asian and Latin American countries import shrimp to America for less than it costs to produce.

The new Shrimp Task Force, however, said those foreign countries simply produce shrimp more efficiently and economically by farming them in pools near the ocean instead of fishing for them in the open sea. As a result, more than 90 percent of shrimp now eaten by Americans is imported.

The Utah angle comes because "the farm-raised shrimp's favorite food is brine shrimp," said Bridgewater, and most of the brine shrimp eggs harvested from the Great Salt Lake are sold abroad as farm-raised shrimp food.

So, if U.S. shrimp boaters win their claims and resulting tariffs raise prices on cheap imported shrimp, it could cut production abroad, cut demand for Utah brine shrimp and affect jobs in the state.

Bridgewater, who runs a consulting firm, said 22 Utah companies harvest brine shrimp eggs from the Great Salt Lake and employ about 500 people. He said sales of brine shrimp eggs average $50 million a year, and peaked at $80 million. Last year, however, with problems from the drought, he said sales were only around $30 million.

The task force said it figured the claims by U.S. shrimp boaters would help about 13,000 people they employ, but hurt 250,000 other Americans who work in seafood processing plants, restaurants, stores, soybean farms and for brine shrimp companies.

Wally Stevens, president of the American Seafood Distributors Association, said shrimp "has become a reasonably priced staple of Americans' diet instead of a luxury that only the wealthy can afford. This petition (by shrimp boaters) could take three-quarters of this country's shrimp out of restaurants and grocery stores."

The task force said it will work to help prove that prices of imported shrimp are fair and push to ensure the Commerce Department makes fair comparisons in price studies.

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