The Gulf Disaster May Well Touch the Bay

Oil slicks and tar balls from the Gulf oil spill haven’t made it to the Chesapeake Bay yet – actually, there’s little likelihood they ever will. But the spill may have a detrimental effect on the Bay in a way you  might not suspect.

Most of the oysters packaged by Virginia and Maryland oyster processors during the summer come from Louisiana. That’s because native Chesapeake Bay oysters are still relatively scarce. They have been for some time, as over-harvesting, pollution, and disease have reduced the Bay’s wild oyster population to about 2 percent of its historic levels.

The Chesapeake Bay once produced nearly 20 million bushels of oysters a year, but today the Gulf of Mexico is the oyster king, supplying nearly 70 percent of the nation’s bivalves. That is, until the recent oil well disaster. Because of the ongoing spill, nearly a third of the Gulf has been declared off-limits to oystering, and half of Louisiana’s oyster beds are now closed to harvests.

That means fewer oysters across the nation and here in Bay country. And fewer oysters here means even tougher times for the Bay’s remaining oyster packing companies. CBF has learned that some Virginia packing houses already have laid off workers because of a shortage of oysters to shuck. For a Bay seafood industry already on the ropes, the spill-induced oyster shortage and related uncertainties could be fatal.

“The oil spill is going to have profound impacts on the ability of Virginia’s oyster processors to produce product and stay in business,” notes CBF Oyster Restoration and Fisheries Scientist Tommy Leggett. “This could affect the seafood industry for decades.” 

There’s more. A shortage of oysters shucked and sold in the Bay region also means a shortage of oyster shells. As regular Bay Daily readers know, a key strategy for restoring native oysters to the Chesapeake involves using empty shells to build new oyster reefs in creeks and rivers around the Bay.

Shucked oyster shells are used because wild, free-floating larval oysters naturally are attracted to oyster shells and will attach, or settle, upon them as a permanent home. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, their oyster restoration partners, and commercial watermen use hundreds of millions of these shells every year to build and recondition  Bay reefs and public and private oyster beds. Much of the shell originates in the Gulf or from Bay-area packing companies that import oysters from the Gulf.

The shells also are crucial for “spat on shell” oyster restoration and aquaculture projects. These involve placing empty shells in large manmade tanks and flooding them with water swimming with oyster larvae. The larvae attach to the shells, becoming spat or baby oysters, and the “spat on shell” are then transferred to the Bay to grow to maturity.

CBF, for example, uses millions of empty oyster shells each year for its spat-on-shell oyster restoration and reef-stocking programs, and many commercial watermen use them in a similar way to “farm” oysters in aquaculture operations. A shell shortage could threaten all of these efforts.

Of course, it also means that CBF’s “Save Oyster Shells” recycling program will become even more important to the restoration work we do. CBF and our many partners and volunteers regularly collect old shells from restaurants, raw bars, and oyster roasts through the program, which is growing in size and popularity. Last month’s Chincoteague Seafood Festival, for example, netted 75 bushels of shells for CBF, thanks to an assist from Citizens for a Better Eastern Shore and The Nature Conservancy.

For more information about how you can help in the shell recycling effort, click here.

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Bay Daily update: Last month, I blogged about CBF super-volunteer Ann Jurczyk, who on her own initiative applied for and won a $92,500 grant to restore 400 feet of James River frontage with a natural “living shoreline” at the Jamestown 4-H Center in James City County, Va. The money paid for an off-shore stone breakwater, sand replenishment, and grass plantings to create a marsh that will reduce erosion from a nearby bluff.

Well, Jurczyk has done it again. She wrote a second grant proposal, and recently the 4-H Center was awarded $101,000 from the Chesapeake Bay Trust and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to complete the shoreline stabilization project. Riverworks of Gloucester, Va., will install a second breakwater, additional sand, and marsh grass next year. The grant also will fund signage explaining to 4-H campers and visitors the benefits of living shorelines to control erosion rather than seawalls and riprap.

Wow!

By Chuck Epes

Photos (top to bottom) by Kristi Carroll/CBF staff; Beverly Jackson; Rob Brumbaugh/CBF staff; Chuck Epes/CBF staff; Ann Jurczyk.

Comments

[Claudiagrid]

The oil spills have created a huge damage to sea food industry and most of the aquatic plants and animals have been terribly affected due to this spill. Speedy measures should be taken to prevent the spill reaching the Chesapeake bay.I suggest the readers to visit website http://gasandoilnews.com since contains plenty of info regarding the oil and gas news and more news on the oil spills in United States and China.

[moncler jackets]

So cute! I already like you on FB and also get your posts on Google Reader. :)