St. Mary’s & Shore Thing Partner for Oyster Recovery
By Mallory Lengel, contributing writer
St Mary’s College, Maryland Department of Natural Resources and Shore Thing Shellfish together announced last week an $89,950 grant to fund a new oyster restoration project.
Maryland Industrial Partnerships (MIPS) and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) partnered together to help connect faculty members with local companies who match funds provided by DNR, and create a partnership between academics and industry.
Water quality in St. Mary’s River has greatly suffered in recent years due to the diminishing oyster population. According to Robert Paul, professor of Biology at St. Mary’s College, increasing the oyster population will improve the water quality and consequentially, bolster aquaculture and local watershed businesses.
St. Mary’s College Alumni, Kevin Boyle and Brian Russell, along with local waterman Sheldon Russell and Mandy Burch founded Shore Thing Shellfish in 2011 to grow oysters locally using economically and environmentally friendly practices.
MIPS, with the support of Delegate John Bohanan, is providing state funding to allow St. Mary’s College and Shore Thing Selfish to work together towards their goal of creating a self-sustaining oyster population.
What sets Shore Thing Shellfish’s Oyster Restoration system apart from others that have been in place previously is that it aims to cut down on cost and waste by growing the oysters directly in the St. Mary’s River.
Traditionally oyster larvae are grown in land-based tanks until they are able to be transplanted into the river or bay. Shore Thing Shellfish’s method removes the labor-intensive and time-consuming step of transplanting the Oyster Spat from the land-based tanks into the bay by growing the oysters in open-bottom tanks in the St. Mary’s River.
Hopes are high that this partnership will revolutionize the efforts to clean up the St. Mary’s River and ultimately improve water quality in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.
