Dredging can cleanse and revitalize oyster habitats

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

I was so troubled by the misinformation in this letter that I felt the need to reply. The letter says that HB 584 is bad for the environment and the oyster population, but I respectfully and strongly disagree.

There has been so much misinformation about this subject for the last several decades that it is about time someone started to set the record straight.

The area that Mr. McDougall refers to in the Patuxent River between Battle Creek and St. Leonard's Creek is currently not being actively worked in a way that will revitalize oyster bars or shoals existing there. He would have us believe that leaving these stocks undisturbed is a good thing.

Actually the opposite is true. These populations are the victims of siltation from years of upstream development and runoff. When an oyster bar silts over, it dies, plain and simple. There is no place for the oyster spat to set as it will not adhere to a muddy or silty bottom.

Oyster spat requires a good hard substrate, like a cleaned oyster shell, to set on. This is how a naturally occurring oyster bar regenerates itself.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources, with the support of environmental groups such as the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Coastal Conservation Association, use this very technique of dredging to clean and revitalize oyster bars in other parts of Patuxent River.

They hire the very same watermen, using the very same equipment and techniques, to cleanse and revitalize this oyster habitat.

This activity, contrary to the misinformation out there, does not destroy the three-dimensional structure of the oyster bar at all, it simply cleans the siltation off the bar so it may thrive and reproduce as nature intended it to. This is a good thing.

The overcharged rhetoric of words like "underwater equivalent of clear cutting a forest" intentionally emotionalizes the issue and draws the wrong picture for the majority of us dedicated to finally pursuing a strategy of restoring a thriving oyster population to the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. This is the same type of rhetoric and misunderstanding that has prevented us from mitigating the severe loss of oyster habitat for decades. If we continue to do the same things in this arena, we will continue to reap the same declines in oyster population we have experienced for far too long.

What is also left out of the letter is that an amendment has been proposed by Del. Sue Kullen as the lead sponsor of HB 584. The amendment would limit the gear type used to patent tonging while eliminating the use of power dredging.

This will have the effect of reducing any harvest associated with the authorization, but would still allow for revitalizing the oyster habitat.

DNR has no current plans to perform oyster bar restoration in this section of the river like it does elsewhere.

The intent of HB 584 is to allow the waterman to perform this function in a time of very limited state funds being available.

They will harvest a fraction of the oysters in this process, but the overall health of the bar will be restored and it will then have an opportunity to regenerate and survive.

To continue to do nothing, as is currently planned, will ultimately kill all of the oyster population there due to excessive siltation of the bars. That is what will be bad for fishing, crabbing and the environment.

One would think that this is what DNR and my friends in the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and the Coastal Conservation Association should be worried about.

Del. Anthony J. O'Donnell, Lusby

The writer is a member of the Maryland House of Delegates representing Calvert and St. Mary's counties.