MS fishermen sue state for taking their right to catch oysters on Sound reefs
Oysters are back in the Mississippi Sound and Coast fishermen want the right to keep harvesting them on the state reefs.
Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United and 22 fishermen are suing the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources and the state over the Legislature’s decision to privately lease out up to 80% of the reefs that have been open to the public for centuries.
“In essence, the new laws radically change the state-owned reefs from public to private — a paradigm shift that would lease most of the reefs to a few large private companies selected by“ DMR Executive Director Joe Spraggins and DMR, according to the lawsuit. Spraggins also is a named defendant in the suit.
The state and DMR have not had time to respond to the lawsuit, which represents only one side of the case. Spraggins said the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office is handling the case and his agency, which regulates Coast fisheries, would not comment on the lawsuit.
The fisheries group and oystermen filed the lawsuit in Harrison County Chancery Court, which decides matters of equity. They are asking that Judge Margaret Alfonso, who is presiding over the case, temporarily prohibit the lease program until trial, at which time they want a permanent injunction to stop it.
“Mississippi’s oyster fishermen contend that the public oyster reefs are experiencing a significant recovery since last being devastated by the 2019 and 2020 openings of the Bonnet Carré Spillway and that legislators and officials with the MDMR have underestimated and undervalued the abundance of oysters currently proliferating on some areas of the historic public reefs that are available for harvest,” Mississippi Commercial Fisheries United, a nonprofit alliance of fishermen, says in a news release.
Public vs. private oyster reefs
The nonprofit and fishermen claim the laws privatizing public reefs violate their freedom and property rights without giving them due process guaranteed in the Mississippi and U.S. constitutions. No public hearing was held — as promised — before the DMR set in motion the plan to privately lease oyster reefs, the lawsuit says.
The most productive reefs are in the western Mississippi Sound off the shores of Pass Christian. Some of those reefs have finally recovered from a disastrous 2019 opening of the Bonnet Carré Spillway that released Mississippi River water into Louisiana’s Lake Pontchartrain and the Sound beyond, the lawsuit says. The record-breaking release of river water to prevent flooding in New Orleans, which lasted 123 days, killed all the oysters in the Sound and even 100 nautical miles away to the east in Pascagoula.
More recently, reefs have been recovering well enough for DMR to allow the first public catch of oysters in five years last fall and also an April oyster season. DMR has been responsible for maintaining the public reefs but now wants to turn over most of that work to private companies
The DMR’s Spraggins has said his agency lacks the manpower and money to maintain state oyster reefs in today’s climate. The Mississippi Legislature modeled its oyster leasing program after one that Louisiana has long used, reasoning private enterprise could do a better job growing oysters.
Companies applying for leases must show they are financially able to plant and grow oysters, a time-consuming and expensive proposition. An outside CPA firm is reviewing the financial submissions from private companies, a process the lawsuit says is “arbitrary and capricious.”
Under a state law passed in 2024 and amended in 2025, the state can through DMR lease to private companies 80% of the sound’s natural reefs, collectively giving those companies “a virtual monopoly” for harvesting and selling wild-caught oysters, the lawsuit says.
Oysters are more than a seafood product. Reefs nourish the sound’s ecosystem and buffer the shoreline from erosion, especially in storms.
This story was originally published May 2, 2025 at 2:37 PM.
