Oyster-Saving Efforts a Wash In Chesapeake

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Oyster Restoration Efforts Prove Challenging, Expensive

The Washington Post's David Fahrenthold describes restoration efforts for the declining oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay.

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Another objection has to do with the design of government-built oyster habitats. Some scientists say they should be a foot or more tall, so oysters stay out of the mud. But, in both states, officials continue to build many shorter reefs.

"It's just more expensive to try to do" a larger reef, said Jim Wesson of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. He said the height had little effect.

In the Great Wicomico River in Virginia's Northern Neck, a group led by the Corps of Engineers says it is proving otherwise. It built a taller reef and watched oysters spread across it: about 183 million of them. When a metal dredge was raked over the reef, it came up full of big, stone-colored oysters.

"What's wrong with this picture?" said Rom Lipcius of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "Oysters can't come back?"

Academics and officials are looking for new oyster strategies. Some state officials say they need a huge increase in funding. Others want to introduce an oyster species from Asia. Some watermen want freedom to catch more oysters. Some activists want them to catch fewer and start farming oysters instead.

No matter what, the prognosis for oysters is depressing. Unless the oyster develops resistance to diseases, its best-case scenario might be to hold out only in pockets of the bay.

"It's not going to be John Smith's bay," said Rich Takacs of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "And it's probably not going to be your grandfather's bay."

For watermen, the picture is not much better. On the Lynnhaven River in Hampton Roads, Peter Nixon embraced the call to be a shellfish farmer and found his new life to be more stressful than his old one. He figures he needs to sell a million oysters a year to make any kind of money, but so far he has the capacity to raise about 200,000.

And what about marketing his product? What about oyster thieves? And what if a hurricane comes?

"God, I don't know if we'll ever get there," he said.