Jun 16, 2009 5:28 pm US/Eastern
Maryland Oyster Growing Program To Expand
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (WJZ/AP) ―
More is better. At least that's the hope of a state program connecting people with oysters.
Alex DeMetrick reports, a program started last year is rapidly expanding this summer.
Soon more than boats will be tying up in the Mogothy River. So will hundreds of small cages filled with oyster shells.
Each of those shells carrying a new generation of baby oysters called spat.
People like Tim Decker of the Gibson Island Country School will do the raising.
"This can't do anything but help. You get more filters in the river, it's going to better river water quality," Decker said.
Maryland officials will expand a program that grows baby oysters in cages, then plants them on reefs. Eleven more tributaries in Southern Maryland, Anne Arundel County and the Eastern Shore will be included in the expansion.
The program, called Marylanders Grow Oysters project, currently operates on piers in the Tred Avon River in Talbot County. With the new waterways, the state Department of Natural Resources' shellfish program will move their workload to 13 local groups.
"The cages and oysters are free and they get the work done," said Christopher C. Judy, the DNR's shellfish manager. He added that the state is covering the cost of the project, which is more than $100,000.
More than 175 people in the Tred Avon program took care of about 850 cages filled with between 500 and 1,000 baby oysters, known as spat, Judy said. Half of the Tred Avon oysters, now about the size of a quarter, will be planted on a sanctuary reef during the summer; the other half will continue to grow in cages and maybe reproduce, he said.
"What we did in the Tred Avon, now it is their job to do in their river," Judy said of groups like the Patuxent Chapter of Coastal Conservation Association Maryland and the Magothy River Association, which will start growing the spat in their creeks and rivers.
The program was introduced by Governor Martin O'Malley last summer. It comes after years of inconclusive studies and millions of dollars spent by federal and state governments trying to find a way to bring back the native oyster, the victim of overfishing, disease and pollution. The Chesapeake Bay's oyster population is at 1 percent of its historic levels, experts say.
One DNR cage filled with spat about a half-inch to an inch big can filter as up to 50 gallons of water an hour, Judy said. One three- to four-inch adult oyster will filter 50 gallons of water a day, making the oysters the bay's natural filter.
This summer's project will add 5,000 cages in the 11 waterways; that means putting about 2.5 million spat in the water. The wire mesh cages, slightly bigger than mailboxes, are built by inmates in Maryland's prison system.
The spat are grown at Maryland's oyster hatchery in Cambridge. The cages and spat, attached to shell to help support their growth, will be trucked late this summer to the local groups.
They will be responsible for providing volunteers to distribute and take care of the oysters. That includes regularly knocking silt off the oysters or scraping barnacles and other growth from the cages, Judy said.
Baby oysters and cages are available to the public through the Department of Natural Resources Oyster Program.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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