A way forward on oysters, or walking away?
Lawmakers in Annapolis got an earful about oysters yesterday, but still missed a few voices.
Maryland has been trying without much success for the past two decades to rebuild oyster populations in the Chesapeake Bay after they became infested by a pair of diseases in the late 1980s. The head of a blue-ribbon task force studying the issue told legislators that the state needs to ramp up its efforts and redirect them if it wants to help the bay and watermen at the same time.
William Eichbaum, head of the 21-member Oyster Advisory Commission, told members of the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee that the state needs to separate its efforts to help the bay's oysters from its attempts to aid the similarly faltering oyster industry.
The best chance for bringing oysters back from the diseases that have devastated them is to establish "large-scale" sanctuaries, he said, where reefs could be rebuilt and planted with oysters that would be protected long-term from commercial harvest. Entire creeks or rivers ought to be put off-limits, he said, to enhance the chances of oysters to survive the diseases and thwart poaching, which Eichbaum said was a serious problem.
Meanwhile, he said, the state should provide training, start-up grants, loan guarantees and maybe even insurance to watermen so they can "transition" from taking wild oysters from the public bay bottom and become oyster farmers, raising shellfish on leased plots of bay bottom or in floats on or near the water's surface.
Eichbaum made clear he was not advocating eliminating the public oyster fishery that has existed for centuries in Maryland. But he urged that it be regulated more tightly in the future, limiting catches to what the wild population could sustain without annual replenishments of state-funded, hatchery-reared baby oysters.
Committee members asked few questions, though Sen. Richard F. Colburn, an Eastern Shore Republican, urged the state to move ahead with plans to dredge up fossil oyster shells from the bay bottom at a spot known as Man-o-War Shoal. The state has applied for a permit to dredge the shells, which it says willl help rebuild oyster reefs buried amid mud on the bottom. But the dredging is opposed by recreational fishermen, who say they fear it will harm a favorite fishing spot.
The panel then heard a related O'Malley administration bill seeking to overhaul the state's ancient laws governing leasing of the bay bottom, which officials described as a major hindrance to the growth of shellfish aquaculture in Maryland.
The laws date back to 1830, pointed out Natural Resources Secretary John R. Griffin. He said the state was poised to help watermen get into oyster aquaculture, earmarking up to $2 million of about $13 million in state and federal funds approved to help watermen affected by crabbing woes.
Donald Webster, head of the Maryland Aquaculture Coordinating Council, said the leasing law reform proposal grew out of a "recognition if we don't do something soon, we're not going to have much left." Oyster harvests in recent years have been less than 1 percent of what they were historically.
Larry Simns, president of the Maryland Watermen's Association, said his group supports the leasing changes because the prospects for a public oyster fishery look dim right now. But he warned that aquaculture won't restore the lost oyster abundance of the bay, since the oysters planted by growers will be removed for sale.
Simns also warned that the advisory commission's vision of restoring the bay's lost oyster abundance also may falter if the state doesn't spend at least $40 million a year over the next decade on rebuilding reefs and reseeding them with baby oysters. But such money is unlikely in the current budget crisis, speakers pointed out.
Finally, Simns said he believes the real impediment to reviving the bay's oysters and oyster industry are the diseases MSX and Dermo, which kill the shellfish as they reach maturity. Virginia and Maryland watermen and seafood processors have urged the introduction of Asian oysters, which resist the diseases and grow rapidly. But scientists and environmentalists oppose bringing an alien species into the bay, warning it could cause ecological havoc.
While introducing a non-native Asian oyster to the bay may have its risks, Simns said, he'd rather take that chance than gamble on what he termed long-shot prospects of restoring native oysters.
Not invited to testify, though, were leaders of the Maryland Oystermen Association, whose members still ply the bay harvesting oysters. Jim Mullins, one of the group's board members who sat in the audience, said later that the plans outlined at the hearing amount to "an agenda to extinguish the public fishery, or let it dangle on the vine."
The oystermen contend that the state's longstanding practice of rebuilding public oysters reefs with old shells and seeding them with state hatchery reared oysters was working - that it helped repopulate the bay's oyster stocks while also helping them make a living. They contend that neighboring Delaware and New Jersey have continued repletion programs similar to the one Maryland is now abandoning, and that the oyster populations in those states have bounced back while supporting some level of commercial harvesting.
(Photos show watermen Alvin Richardson and Bunky Chance working on Broad Creek near St. Michaels back in 2006. By Doug Kapustin of The Baltimore Sun)
in oysters
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I report on the environment and Chesapeake Bay. A native of West Virginia, I have focused mainly on Maryland's environment since moving here in 1983. Along the way, I've crewed aboard a skipjack in the bay, canoed under city streets up the Jones Fall from the Inner Harbor, and gone deep underground in a western Maryland coal mine. Recently, I have been covering the growth and development transforming the landscape. I love seafood, rambles in the country and good stories. I hope to share some here.
Comments
Mr. Wheeler, thanks for the informative work. And thanks for trying to give even handed information, with all sides represented. So many articles/writing on environmental matters only state the heavily politicized/agenda ridden view of an issue.
Pay the watermen directly – have them do restoration work. Who better, they have the equipment and the know-how to re-establish productive oyster beds.
‘Establish large-scale sanctuaries’ definitely – do this immediately. The larger the better – especially - the deeper the better.
I totally agree, do not eliminate the ‘public oyster fishery’. But let’s start that public fishery up again about 2020. Until then, build reefs, start farms, etc.
The 2 million $’s mentioned in the article from Federal funds for watermen eclipses the less than 2 million $’s (83,000 bushels @ $20 per bushel) the oyster harvest was worth last year.
Also, an oyster filters 50 gallons of bay water per day… 83,000 times 50 means over 4,000,000 gallons per day would be filtered if the take was 0 last year. (Almost 30,000,000 gallons of bay water a week!) That is a lot of filtration that is missing from the Bay. Also, those oysters would be reproducing had they not been taken from the Bay.
Money for oyster farming – a good idea. Sure, farmed oysters are harvested – But - they filter the water, they create (ever better) breeding stock, they are easily studied… etc. The farming has its place – not a complete solution, but a useful thing to do.
No foreign intruders! Restoring native Bay oysters is not a ‘long shot prospect’ if we do it! Stop taking oysters!! Keep studying the foreign ones, and set up some filtration areas for the foreigners (where they can’t escape)…
If programs in DE and NJ have been successful; this should be investigated further. Of course, MD would want to copy any successful practices other estuaries have used. Maryland and Virginia should pursue a broad range of progressive actions that help with oyster replenishment, including watershed improvements on land…
Posted by: Phil Morrison | February 19, 2009 11:40 AM
I agree with what Phil says- and have a few more things I would like to emphasize.
Having worked on an oyster farm, and currently studying aquaculture, i can attest not only to the floating culture systems ability to grow large amounts of delicious oysters, but also to their habitat value. a single oyster bag would contain up to 200 grass shrimp, for example, which are food for all the bigger fish. Studies show that aquaculture gear provides equal biodiversity to a natural oyster reef.
Plus, the implementation of aquaculture in carefully chosen areas would allow those farmed oysters to re-seed natural reefs with high numbers of disease resistant spat.
Every farmed oyster harvested also represents a removal of some of the (possibly eutrophying) anutrients from the over-fertilized waters as well.
The problem with the public funded oyster bar seeding program is that it eats of millions of dollars in tax money to supply a few oystermen with far less money scraping them back up. It seems an unsustainable system. Alternatively, with smart use of economically AND environmentally sustainable oyster aquaculture, the natural populations would rebound as a happy byproduct- preserving the oystermen's way of life, while improving the Bay and saving our tax money.
Posted by: Andrew McDonald | February 19, 2009 3:33 PM
I was wondering what is going to happen to oyster bars if they are left untouched? Won't layers of silt build up on bars and suffocate them? Remember, this is not the same bay that native americans lived around. Runoff and boat wash is a major problem constantly settling on the bottom. If its too, muddy the spat won't attach well and thrive.
And what about the 4,000,000 gallons unfiltered water in the bay? How much "clean water" do all the sewer plants in the watershed dump everyday?
How many more homes and impervious surfaces do we need until every drop of stormwaterand wastewater goes directly into the bay carrying all the wonderful man-made chemicals with it. Everyone in the watershed contributes a little bit to the filth that ends up in the bay.
So how is it that the oyster can save the bay if left alone? Only if oysters start harvesting people!
Posted by: Jacob Clark | February 26, 2009 8:10 PM
Welll... if the oysters harvested the people who take the oysters from the Bay... yes, that would help both the oystres & the Bay... not a bad idea...
Posted by: Phil Morrison | March 6, 2009 12:06 PM