At last Friday’s meeting of the Potomac Watershed Roundtable, Todd Janeski, the Director of the Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program at VCU-Rice Rivers Center came to talk about the Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling program. The Rice Rivers Center, a VCU field station on the James River, is home to graduate-level water environmental research and education. So it saw the connections and the need for the program.
Oyster shells have long been treated as a waste product. They were crushed into aggregate for cement or used as decorative material in landscaping. Yet there is tremendous ecological value in returning the oyster shells to the waters they came from to promote oyster habitats that are essential for preserving water quality.
Oysters are the Chesapeake Bay's best natural filters. A single adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. Oysters also provide essential habitat for fish and other Bay creatures. The eastern oyster is one of the most iconic species in the Chesapeake Bay. For more than a century, oysters made up one of the region’s most valuable commercial fisheries, and the oysters which are filter-feeders continues to clean our waters and offer food and habitat to other animals.
However, over-harvesting, disease and habitat loss have led to a severe drop in oyster populations. Scientists are working to manage harvests, establish sanctuaries, overcome the effects of disease and restore reefs with hatchery-raised seed in an effort to bring back the oyster. In 2010, Maryland and Virginia embarked on a tributary-based restoration strategy that will build, seed and monitor reefs in several Maryland and Virginia waterways. This commitment was incorporated into the Chesapeake Bay TMDL restoration plan. Building these reefs requires oyster shells.
Since 2013, under the direction of Todd Janeski, the VCU-Rice Rivers Center has facilitated the collection of waste oyster shells from restaurants and returned them to the Virginia portion of the Chesapeake Bay to help build oyster habitat and reefs and restore wild oyster populations, improve water quality and provide new fish habitat.
Natural oyster shell is the preferred substrate for growing new oysters, but many restoration projects rely on reclaimed clam shells, crushed concrete or reef balls as surrogates. According to Mr. Janeski,
“When oysters reproduce they need hard surfaces, but real shells also provide the nutrients needed to grow and thrive.” Currently, the program recycles about 90,000 pounds of shell annually.
The Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program kick-starts the reproduction process by seeding the shells with oyster larvae before placing them in an Oyster Sanctuary. Using this method over 24 million oysters will be re-introduced to the Chesapeake Bay through the Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program this year.
The Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program partners with restaurants and community groups to collect the oyster shells at the restaurants and transport them to 30 yard (donated) dumpsters to collect oyster shells, and when the bins are full, the shells travel to a curing site. “Once you take in the shell, you have to let it age for a year to decompose any other organic material,” Todd explained to us.
After aging the shells, the team moves them to a large tanks (repurposed Jacuzzis) using plastic mesh bags. Inside these tanks, the shells are seeded with young oysters that will attach to the shells. Young oysters free-swim early in life, searching for something to attach to. Todd explained that they “prefer shell since it releases calcium and provides a unique complex structure to protect oysters when they are on the reef.”
After oysters are introduced into the tank, it takes about 10 days for them to attach to the shells. From there, the shells and oysters are transported to a sanctuary site in the bay. This location is often close to a commercial, private or public harvesting site, but it introduces new oysters to the ecosystem both within the sanctuary and outside of it.
Northern Virginia, Prince William, and Loudoun Conservation Districts were so inspired by the Virginia Oyster Shell Recycling Program and Todd Janeski’s talk that we’d like to work with our partners to bring the program to Northern Virginia. Contact the PWSWCD or NoVASWCD for more details.
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