Chesapeake Bay News

Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) recently released the results from 2011 From the Bay, For the Bay Dine Out. Through a collaborative partnership among regional restaurants, DNR and the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP), the week-long celebration raised $20,240 to support Chesapeake Bay oyster restoration.

More than 170 restaurants in Maryland, Washington D.C., Delaware, Pennsylvania and Virginia participated in the promotion, which took place October 2-9, 2011. The restaurants donated $1 from every Maryland seafood dinner sold during the week; the money is being donated to ORP to support oyster restoration efforts.

Top participating restaurants included the Boatyard Bar & Grill in Annapolis, Woodberry Kitchen and Ryleigh’s Oyster Bar in Baltimore, and Matchbox Restaurants in Washington, DC. Together they donated $5,626.

ORP’s oyster restoration activities include collecting, aging, cleaning oyster shells and planting spat (baby oysters), on the oyster shells. The spat is produced by the University of Maryland, Center for Environmental Science Horn Point Hatchery.

The Oyster Recovery Partnership’s most publically-recognized program – the region’s oyster Shell Recycling Alliance – is made up of nearly 100 restaurants, caterers and seafood distributors from the mid-Atlantic region, as well as citizen volunteers who collect donated used oyster shells from these businesses to aid in restoring the Chesapeake Bay.

The Shell Recycling Alliance has quickly grown to provide 15 percent of Maryland’s shell needs at current oyster production levels, prolonging the State’s limited shell reserves. For more information on the Oyster Recovery Partnership, visit oysterrecovery.org.

source: MD DNR

Annapolis Seafood Market has partnered with the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) to collect used oyster shells from their stores and participating restaurants to help promote the expansion of oyster beds in the Chesapeake Bay. As part of their program, Annapolis Seafood Market will display educational signage inside each store for their customers to learn how they can participate in this important recycling effort.

Annapolis Seafood Market utilizes five-gallon buckets at each of their locations to collect used oyster shells. During their normal delivery routes, drivers drop the empty buckets, pick up the filled ones then return them to Annapolis Seafood Market’s Distribution Center in Annapolis where they are transferred to a 400-bushel shell collection container.

ORP and its partners collect the shells weekly and transport them to the Horn Point Oyster Hatchery near Cambridge, Maryland where they begin the drying and aging process. Later in the process, young oyster spat are allowed to attach to old shells and re-planted to help repopulate the Bay’s oyster population.

Nearly 100 restaurants and catering companies currently participate in the Shell Recycling Alliance.

For more information visit http://www.oysterrecovery.org/

source:  Oyster Recovery Partnership

With the help of several watermen and volunteers, Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) staff collected the first batch of oysters grown through Maryland’s citizen oyster growing program from private piers along the Tred Avon River, and planted them on a sanctuary near Oxford.

“I am very pleased at the success of Marylanders Grow Oysters,” said Governor Martin O’Malley, who launched the program last September. “Our citizen stewards in Talbot County have not only done a terrific job giving these baby oysters a head start on life, but they also have been a source of inspiration for other conservation minded Marylanders; this year, we are expanding the program to eleven additional Bay tributaries.”

Under the program, which is run by DNR with assistance from the ORP, 177 waterfront pier owners along the Tred Avon have been tending oyster spat in 858 cages along the Tred Avon since October.

“As people become more concerned about the future of our children and the future of our planet, they become more interested in becoming part of the solution,” said DNR Secretary John Griffin. “Through programs like this one and Marylanders Plant Trees, people are able to contribute to the health of our natural assets, connect with our natural world, and see immediate results.”

With the help of local coordinators, this year’s program will include citizens along the Annemessex, Corsica, Magothy, lower Nanticoke, lower Patuxent, Severn, South, St. Mary’s and Wicomico (Western Shore) Rivers, as well as La Trappe and San Domingo Creeks.

“Whether it’s one million oysters from this program, or the 450 million already planted this year through our state and federal partnerships, every oyster plays a vital role in the recovery of the Chesapeake Bay,” said Stephan Abel, Executive Director of ORP.

The oysters for the program come from the University of Maryland hatchery at Horn Point and the DNR Piney Point hatchery in St. Mary’s County. DNR oversees the project, with the Oyster Recovery Partnership playing a major role in leading both production and distribution. Each river has one or more local coordinators, which are essential to the program, donating their time and energy to advertise, enroll growers, tally contact information, and help distribute oyster cages.

Information on Marylanders Grow Oysters and Marylanders Plant Trees is available at the State’s Smart, Green & Growing website: www.green.maryland.gov.

Maryland’s citizen oyster growing program has invited 12 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to coordinate oyster growing efforts in their local tributaries in 2009. Launched by Governor Martin O’Malley in September 2008, Marylanders Grow Oysters fosters stewardship of the Chesapeake Bay among citizens, and creates living oyster reef populations in protected sanctuaries to help restore the iconic species.

“We are thrilled that these organizations have been selected and will help expand this exciting program,” said Governor O’Malley. “By becoming leaders in their tributaries for Maryland’s oyster growing efforts, they will inspire others to become stewards of our waterways and promote healthy, plentiful oyster populations for many years to come.”

These 12 NGOs, located in 11 different tributaries in Maryland, will act as local project coordinators who will identify waterfront property owners willing to become oyster growers and deliver oyster cages and oysters to growers in the tributary.

NGOs include:

Magothy River Association

Severn River Association

South River Association

Coastal Conservation Association and Southern MD Oyster Cultivation Society

Wicomico Scenic River Commission

St. Mary’s River Watershed Association

Corsica River Conservancy

San Domingo Environmental Concern

La Trappe Environmental Concern

ORP and Nanticoke River Watershed Association

Annemessex Ridge Property Owners Association

Through the program, citizen volunteers tend to young oysters growing in wire mesh cages suspended from private piers for their first year of life. The oyster spat and cages are provided by DNR and other program partners at no charge to the volunteers. The oysters require minimal care – mostly rinsing the cages every two weeks.

Citizen oyster growers enjoy the personal rewards of stewardship and learn about oysters while contributing to the enhancement of an oyster reef in their local tributary. The year-old oysters are then collected and planted in a local oyster sanctuary, and a new group of young oysters are distributed to participating growers to start the process again.

The program still welcomes interested NGOs to apply for 2009. Visit http://www.oysters.maryland.gov/pdfs/Oyster_App_Doc.pdf to obtain an application, and contact Chris Judy at 410-260-8259 or cjudy@dnr.state.md.us for any additional information.

The Marylanders Grow Oysters Program is being managed by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources in conjunction with the Oyster Recovery Partnership, the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science and the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services. For more information about Marylanders Grow Oysters visit www.dnr.maryland.gov/oysterproject.

On February 24, 2009 the Maryland Department of Natural Resources announced the next phase of a project involving the Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) and Chesapeake Bay watermen on the state’s oyster bar rehabilitation program. The project is part of a plan to help mitigate economic losses from the declining blue crab fishery, while also helping to restore the Chesapeake Bay.

“Together with the Oyster Recovery Partnership, Maryland is taking action to improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay, while ensuring that watermen have opportunities to continue to thrive,” said Governor O’Malley. “We are especially thankful to our congressional delegation and Maryland General Assembly for supporting funding which enabled these sustainable measures to be put into action.”

For the next 12 weeks, about 475 watermen will work to recover and clean oyster bars in the Tangier Sound and the Patuxent, Choptank, Tred Avon, Wicomico and Severn Rivers. Watermen will use their boats and dredge equipment to remove silt and sediment from the tops of once historically healthy oyster bars in order to prepare them for a natural spat set and/or hatchery seed planting.

The oyster bar rehabilitation program began in November of 2008 and once complete will have provided at least 10 days of paid work to over 500 watermen. Every year, the Chesapeake Bay loses 2,600 acres of hard bottom oyster habitat. By the end of these projects watermen will have reclaimed shell on 1,000 acres of oyster reefs.

DNR, ORP & Watermen Begin Work Rehabilitating Oyster Bars in Tangier Sound, Severn & Patuxent Rivers

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Oyster Recovery Partnership (ORP) expect to hire more than 520 watermen for oyster bar restoration work as part of Governor Martin O’Malley’s plan to help mitigate economic losses from the declined blue crab fishery, while also helping to restore the Chesapeake Bay.  An additional 84 watermen are expected to be hired for land-based work that will begin later this year.

“United with the Maryland Watermen’s Association and the Oyster Recovery Partnership, we’re keeping Maryland watermen working and protecting the viability of local businesses that rely on blue crabs, while giving the species time to rebuild,” said Governor Martin O’Malley. “Our State and federal government invested in work projects for watermen to help strengthen the industry for the future. The Chesapeake Bay also benefits from these projects that utilize watermen’s skills, gear and intimate knowledge of the Bay to help restore oyster bars, an important habitat for blue crabs.”

This week more than 100 watermen worked to recover and clean approximately 100 acres of oyster bars in Tangier Sound and the Patuxent and Severn Rivers.  Watermen used their boats and dredge equipment to remove silt and sediment from the tops of once historically healthy oyster bars in order to prepare them for a natural spat set and/or hatchery seed planting.

“This work really helped keep us in business and boost the local economy,” said Calvert County Waterman’s Association President Tommy Zinn, who led crews working in the Patuxent River this week. “This is a good program that’s helping the heart of crabbers.  The work that we are doing will hopefully help strengthen the industry down the road by improving our local oyster bars.”

Every year, the Chesapeake Bay loses 2,600 acres of hard bottom oyster habitat.  By the end of these projects watermen will have reclaimed shell on 1,000 acres of oyster reefs.

“This is a good project that helps put more oysters in the bay,” said JR Gross, owner of JVE Seafood and leader of crews working in the Severn River this week. “I’m proud to be a part of this project because it will really have a positive impact.  I’m very optimistic about this program and hope that we can expand it in the future.”

Earlier this year, the O’Malley-Brown Administration took historic action, in cooperation with Virginia Governor Timothy M. Kaine, to rebuild the Chesapeake Bay’s beleaguered blue crab population by reducing the harvest of ecologically valuable female blue crabs by 34 percent in 2008.  In September 2008, in response to a request from Governors O’Malley and Kaine, NOAA‘s National Marine Fisheries Service declared a federal fishery disaster for Chesapeake Bay watermen and women who have suffered economic hardships due to the extremely low and unstable blue crab population as well as the downturn in the national economy.

Earlier this week, Governor O’Malley thanked the leadership of Maryland’s Congressional Delegation for securing $10 million in federal fishery disaster funding for Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay blue crab industry.  These federal funds compliment the $3 million in capital funds set aside by the Governor and General Assembly to pay for the restoration work that started this week.

For more information about Maryland’s efforts to rebuild the Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab population visit www.dnr.maryland.gov/dnrnews/infocus/blue_crab.asp.