Dredging For Answers In Murky Waters

Next week, the Marine Resources Commission will meet to consider whether to open part of the area, perhaps for a 30-day harvest. That would mean watermen scraping oysters off the river bottom with a boat-drawn rake called a dredge.

Similar proposals have been rejected for the past four years. But this year is different, officials say: As the oyster harvest appears headed for another bad year, watermen's demands have gained more momentum. "They're giving it a little bit of a more thorough look this time," Travelstead said of the commission.

The back story for all this is the decades-long decline of the Chesapeake oyster, which stands out even among the estuary's other environmental tragedies. The rockfish, after all, came back. The blue crab still has a fighting chance. But oysters -- to find a sadder story, ask a dodo.

Its problems began with a national oyster craze in the late 1800s, which set off a watermen's rush so lawless that the bay states assembled armed "Oyster Navies" to enforce harvest rules. By 1920, according to one scientist's estimate, more than 75 percent of the bay's population was gone for good.

In the 20th century came the diseases, caused by a pair of protozoa that are harmless to humans, but ravage the shellfish by multiplying rapidly inside them. After huge outbreaks in the 1980s, the oyster population has been left at about 1 percent of its historic levels.

To bring the population back, state officials have tried using old oyster shells or concrete rubble to give oysters places to attach themselves. They have pumped out millions of young oysters at hatcheries.

All told, government agencies have spent at least $45 million since 1994 alone, according to an estimate from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

This work has produced some bright spots: This year, researchers found a thriving, dense oyster population living in the Lynnhaven River in Virginia Beach. And some research has seemed to show oysters growing more resistant to disease.

But none of these efforts have come close to bringing the oyster back.

Some optimistic researchers believe that the oyster might eventually regain 5 to 20 percent of its historic population.

But others doubt that the situation will ever get much better than it is now. They say the bivalves probably won't be killed off completely, but they will be reduced to a bit player in an ecosystem they used to dominate.

"The prognosis is poor," unless disease can somehow be conquered, said Chris Judy, shellfish program director with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources. "It'll be here, but it'll be here at a low level."

That's bad for the Chesapeake, because oysters filter out harmful dirt and algae.

And it's bad for the bay's estimated 9,000-plus watermen and the culture built around them. For years, even the Oyster Festival in the Rappahannock town of Urbanna has had to rely on oysters imported from the Gulf of Mexico. The first-graders competing to be crowned Little Miss Spat (named for a baby oyster) are still local, but the main ingredient in the oyster stews, oyster casseroles and oysters Rockefeller usually aren't.

So what now? A group led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Norfolk office is considering whether to introduce a new oyster from Asia, which is believed to be more resistant to disease. Another high-level group, a "Blue Ribbon Oyster Panel," has been appointed to consider Virginia's oyster options.

Both are expected to report back in 2007.

This fall, many of the questions these panels are facing are playing out, in miniature, in the Rappahannock debate. Watermen say they need help. But scientists and environmentalists say the needs of the oyster and the bay should get top priority.

In Norfolk, Va., Lower Chesapeake Bay Watermen's Association President Pete Nixon said he could see both sides, as well as the desperation inherent in the whole exercise.

"It's like it's the last -- let's go out and kill the last hurt buffalo," Nixon said.