September 7, 2008 (RALEIGH, NC) — Frank Harmon, FAIA, principal of the award-winning firm Frank Harmon Architect PA in Raleigh, NC, has been hired to conduct the feasibility study and to create the conceptual design for the Northern Neck Oyster Hatchery Project (NNOHP) in Virginia. For the study — the project’s Phase One – Harmon is already at work to help determine the feasibility of a commercial-scale oyster hatchery in Northern Neck, the northernmost of three peninsulas on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. His conceptual design is also part of Phase One. Phase Two will see the actual construction of a high-production hatchery in Northern Neck. Construction could begin in 12 to 18 months. The NNOHP website lists two key reasons why the hatchery is needed: (1) the lack of oyster larvae and seed currently available in Virginia limits the industry’s stabilization and economic vitality; and (2) the hatchery’s ultimate goal is to supply the oyster industry in Northern Neck, and perhaps elsewhere, with quality larvae and seed. It also notes that the “level of public involvement will depend on the degree of success within the first several years of production.” In 2006, Frank Harmon’s firm was selected to participate in the feasibility study for up to three oyster hatchery facilities and/or oyster research and education facilities along the coast for the North Carolina Aquarium Division for very similar reasons. The firm was also hired to design the facilities. Harmon has extensive experience with projects that blend architecture with the enhancement of natural resources, including Duke University’s Ocean Science Teaching Center in Beaufort, NC, the Walter B. Jones Center for the Sounds, Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Columbia, NC, and the NC Museum of Natural Sciences’ Prairie Ridge Eco-Station. The firm is currently working on Merchants Millpond Outdoor Educational building in Gatesville, N.C., and the Walnut Creek Urban Wetlands Educational Park in Raleigh. The driving forces behind the new Virginia hatchery are the Northern Neck Planning District Commission; Lancaster, Northumberland, Richmond and Westmoreland counties; Bevans Oyster Company; and Cowart and Kellum Seafood companies.For more information on the Northern Neck project, go to http://www.nnpdc.org/NNPDC-PROJ/nnpdc-proj-0003.htm. For more information on Frank Harmon Architecture PA, visit http://www.frankharmon.com.

The article below was taken from the Washington Post. Although the article is centered around residents in Maryland oyster gardening is a big in Virginia. If you might have an interest in pursuing a hobby that is beneficial to the Bay then contact info follows the article. 

Homeowners in the Lusby waterfront community of Hellen Creek off the Patuxent River are growing more than 27,000 oysters under their piers in a grass-roots effort to improve the Chesapeake Bay's water quality. They hope that within a year, the oysters will be able to flush about 1 million gallons of water each day.

The residents bough nickel-size baby oysters and 3-by-6 foot floats, after receiving training from the Patuxent River chapter of the Coastal Conservation Association Maryland. The neighborhood oyster ranchers will flip their floats once a month for three years. At the end of that period, the oysters can be harvested for consumption or will be laid on a sanctuary.

The baby oysters are expected to grow to three inches in about a year. A mature oyster can filter up to 55 gallons of water a day.

The Calvert County community has been leasing six acres on the bottom of Hellen Creek and plans to build a reef sanctuary there to minimize illegal poaching, said Scott McGuire, chapter president.

The chapter also has more than 30,000 oysters floating in St. Thomas Creek. As the two projects continue, the group plans to write a guide for others interested in growing oysters. Experts say the bay's oyster population is roughly 1 percent of historic highs recorded in the 1880s.

The Patuxent River chapter meets on the fourth Wednesday of every month at the Elks Lodge in California. For information, e-mail jcotugno@verizon.net.

Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS)

Sea Grant Advisory Services
Michael Oesterling, (804) 684-7165
mike@vims.edu

Oyster Gardening Organizations:

Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Virginia
(804) 780-1392

Virginia CBF Oyster Gardening Program
Chris Moore (757) 622-1964
cmoore@cbf.org

Tidewater Oyster Gardeners Association

Jackie Partin (804) 694-4407
hellneck@earthlink.net

Northern Neck Oyster Gardeners

Don Beard (804) 438-4820

Lynnhaven 2007

Cliff Love (757) 481-6449
oystercom@hotmail.com

School Oyster Gardening:

Oyster Reef Keepers

Laurie Carroll Sorabella, (757) 460-1200,
oysterreefkeeper@yahoo.com

More on the Hatchery

I have been telling you about this oyster hatchery. There were 4 public input meetings. One in each of the 4 counties of the Northern Neck. 

The only local paper to cover the meetings was "The Northern Neck News". The story below was taken from that paper. There was also another story with concerns from an individual who is trying to start a hatchery. His brood stock is from a disease resistant native oyster.

Please note that at the end of the this article is stated, "It was unclear what measure of success the project would be guided by." That measure of success has still not been defined and it needs to be.

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In my Northern Neck Update that I emailed out this month one of the things I wrote about was the oyster hatchery.

The response from that update has been phenomenal.

One person who responded asked several questions. 2 of those questions were:

1.    Didn't I read that they were planning to produce a non-native species that was thought to be better able to survive the existing pollution? 

2.    Would this cause any further decline for native species? 

The non-native oyster wouldn’t be able to survive pollution better (remember the oyster can filter a lot of pollution) but the non-native is resistant to the disease, dermo, which caused the most death of the native oyster.

What the oyster packers like about this oyster is it grows so fast. Much faster than the native oyster. Therefore they can plant this oyster and process it faster.

Now this creates a whole new set of questions. One of these would be if this non-native oyster would take over and we would lose the native oyster? When answering that question it opens another set of questions among which, is it worth losing the native oyster in order to clean the bay with this non-native?

NOW PAY ATTENTION! What can be done is that this non-native oyster can be produced in a hatchery as a triploid. What is a tripoid? A tripoid is a sterile oyster.

On the surface this sounds pretty good but there is another advantage to the oyster packer on this again. This tripoid is like the fattened calf. Calves that are grown for beef are castrated. This causes them to grow faster. The same is true with a tripoid oyster.

Here is one of my major concerns. This tripoid oyster is produced in a hatchery funded from public monies. The oyster packer wants total control of the hatchery. The seed produced goes on state owned bottom that has been leased back to the oyster packer. Sounds like corporate welfare to me but that is another issue.

Now you might be thinking well at least these oysters are filtering some of the pollutants. Yes, this is true but only in those tributaries that are close to the oyster packers facilities and they are not producing any larvae that the tide can move to settle on the other oyster beds in the bay’s tributaries. Those beds that are for the waterman to work and also open to any citizen of the state. Forget about the part for the waterman if you want ( I’ll address that in another post). Think about it in the filtering factor and bay clean-up.

This same hatchery could produce a native oyster.

Then your next question is, “Wouldn’t the disease, dermo cause this oyster to die?”

Answer, work is now being done with a disease resistant native oyster but even this isn’t going to help the bay if it is produced as a tripoid or without the help of the Chesapeake Bay's watermen.

I’ll try to explain that in my next post.

A grant is trying to be obtained for a feasibility study for a oyster hatchery here in the Northern Neck.

It is being hyped as bringing the oyster industry back to the Northern Neck with the possibility of producing billions of seed oysters.

Please pay attention to this as it progresses. Billions of oysters would save the bay with their filtering ability.

If there are going to be goverment funds to conduct this study then the results of that study should benefit the public and not just the private oyster companies.

More than bringing the oyster industry back to the Northern Neck the restoration of the Chesapeake Bay is a bigger concern. The oyster could do that. 

Water surrounds you in the Northern Neck and all of it would be considered a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay.

Many people looking for waterfront property want to be or have a friend on one of these bodies of water.

Rosier Creek, Monroe, Mattox, Popes, Ferry, Dancing, Wilton, Jackson, Moore, Healy, Currioman Bay, Poor Jack creek, Smarts, Nomini, Mathews Cove, Pierce, Buckner, Lower Machodoc, Cabin Point, Glebe, Branson Cove, Blackbeard pond, Long, Gardner, Jackson, Bonum, Parkers, Shannon Branch, White Point, W. Yeocomico River, Hampton Hall Branch, S. Yeocomico, Mill, Lodge, Dungan, Palmer Cove, Garners, Judith Sound, Kingscote, The Glebe, Wrights cover, Coan, Boathouse Pond, Cod, Presley Creek, Corbin Pond, Hull, Cubitt, Hack, Ellyson, Spring Cove, Willis, Back, Bridge, Sharps, Slough Creek, Gaskin, Owens Pond, Horn Harbor, Coles Point, Betts Mill, Blackwell, Crawley, Balls, Tipers, Barrett, Mill Creek Headwaters, Hurst Point, Taskmasker, Cockrell, Reason, Whays, Warehouse, Gougher, Shell, Cranes Creek, Bailey Prong, Towles Creek, Harveys, Mill, Cloverdale, Ball, Ingram, Natty Point Cove, Lawrence, Prentice, Jarvis, Bames, Henrys, Bells creek, Arthur, Pitmans cove, Longs, Rones Bay, Lees, Hunts, Johnson, Chases, Poplar Neck, Georges, Ashleys, Harpers, Oyster, Little Oyster, Windmill Point, Mosquito creek, Bush Park, Woods, Hunting, Sturgeon, Broad, Jackson, Moore, Coves, Healy, Cobbs, Chapel, creek, Whiting, Meachim, Locklies, French, Ferry, Dancing, Wilton, Taylor, Carters cove, Ashburn Cove, Bridge Cove, Sams, Dunton, Eastern Branch, Yopps, James, Currell, Old Mill, Deadman, Bones cove, Senior, Davis, Lowery, Myer, Moran, Hills, Bells, Punches cove, quarter, Browns, Camps Prong, Norris, Camps Millpond, Norris, Ewell Prong, Chinns, parrots, Morattico, Mulberry, Greenvale, Whitehouse, Millenbeck, Harry George, LaGrange, Robinson, Urbanna creek, Town, Mud, Pecks, Totuskey, Richardson, Farnham, Menokin Bay, Doctors, Cat Point, McGuire, Jugs, Balls Creek VA.

Thats a lot, is it?

As most of you know I use to be a commercial fisherman. Sometimes I take a break from Northern Neck real estate and work a few days on the water.

Some people find that crazy as working on the water is hard phsyical work but I find it to be relaxing.

In October the the associated press was watching use work. The VMRC patronmen carried then to certain boats where the crew asked questions.

In November their article started showing up papers across the country.

I was quoted in the article.

Here is that article taken from the Free Lance Star.

Part of Rappahannock open for oyster season

Date published: 11/22/2007 BY SONJA BARISICASSOCIATED PRESS WRITERON THE RAPPAHANNOCK RIVER–After five hours of seeking oysters in a section of a Chesapeake Bay tributary that has been off-limits until recently, Gerald Condrey was ready to call it a day.The commercial fisherman hadn't caught much, and his take was about to be reduced further.When a Virginia Marine Police boat happened by, he agreed to sell a couple bushels of the largest shellfish to the state–not for eating, not for cooking in traditional Thanksgiving stuffing, but for dumping back into the Rappahannock River."We're going to watch y'all drop them over on the reef," Marine Police Capt. Steve Pope called out as Condrey steered his workboat toward a marked sanctuary area in the river. There, Cordrey raised a tub and poured its gritty contents overboard.BAY'S OYSTER BOUNTY HAS DECLINED STEADILYThat simple action is part of a plan attempting to breed future generations of oysters that can stand up to the diseases that since the 1950s have devastated the bay's once-bountiful oyster population.It is being tried in tandem with a new scheme to rotate harvesting to different parts of the river each year so no one area is overworked. That has opened part of the lower Rappahannock to oystering this fall for the first time in more than 15 years.Condrey and other watermen, as commercial fishermen are known locally, are skeptical.They say the area should have been opened long ago and they blame years of management plans and regulations for the small amount of oysters they're encountering in the newly opened area–so meager they predict the oysters will run out before the season ends Nov. 30.They want to be allowed to harvest the entire river. "They need to open up where the oysters are," said Condrey.WATERMEN SAY THEY KNOW RIVER BESTWatermen argue that, like farm crops that grow better when fields are tilled and weeded, oysters will grow bigger and faster if they are harvested regularly from the river bottom."You should see the oysters that have died" because the state hasn't permitted them to be harvested, said oysterman Ken Smith of Heathsville, disgust in his voice. "You've heard of supply and demand? Let the watermen decide. They're not going to come out here and work if they're not going to make money."Jim Wesson, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission oyster scientist who designed the rotational harvest and buyback program, said the state is trying to make the most efficient use of what oysters are out there and that time is needed to see if this will work.Wesson also said he never expected watermen to find a windfall in the newly opened area, estimating a total yield of 3,000 bushels of oysters that are market-sized–at least 3 inches."That's the way oysters are right now," Wesson said. "There are no oysters in Virginia to speak of."OYSTERS A BIG PART OF VIRGINIA HISTORYAs food and as filters of pollutants in the water, oysters have been important to the ecology, economy and culture of the Chesapeake Bay for centuries.When Jamestown founder John Smith explored the bay in the early 1600s, he described in his journal oysters so abundant that they "lay thick as stones."Following the Civil War, thousands of unemployed men sought to make a living harvesting oysters on the bay. Both Virginia and Maryland established oyster navies to enforce boundaries and prevent poaching; there were border disputes between Maryland and Virginia watermen and even "oyster wars" between the state of Virginia and oyster dredgers.WATERMEN SAY OYSTERS REGULATED TOO MUCHAs recently as 1957, Virginia was producing 30 percent of the nation's oyster supply.Timmy Belvin of Gloucester has been a waterman since he was 12. He's now 49."Twenty years ago, you could come out here, you wouldn't come under 75 bushels a day," Belvin said. Now, he's barely catching his limit of eight bushels per day of market-sized oysters."There's too much regulations," Belvin said.With disease, as well as overharvesting and pollution, the native oyster population in the bay today is about 1 percent of its historic level, according to a recent report by a blue-ribbon panel of watermen, scientists, seafood merchants and VMRC members who spent about a year studying what Virginia had been doing to restore oysters. (Other states bordering the bay have made their own efforts to save the Chesapeake's oysters.)OYSTER HARVEST RULES ARE STRICT, SPECIFICFollowing a recommendation by the Virginia panel, VMRC approved reopening parts of the Rappahannock to harvest from Oct. 1 through Nov. 30. Under a three-year rotation, two areas of the river will be open every year.Watermen may use hand scrapes–old-fashioned rakes for scooping up the bivalves from the river bottom–from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays.They must cull oysters larger than 4 inches, either throwing them back into the water or selling up to three bushels of the larger oysters back to the state per day.The state pays $25 per bushel, or about $5 less per bushel than some watermen recently said they were getting paid for oysters they're selling to seafood houses. Wesson said the state likely will buy back no more than 1,000 bushels.Oysters the state buys are immediately placed on a reef in a sanctuary within the harvest area. Monitoring has shown that oysters in the closed areas were very large, meaning they are reaching 7 or 8 years of age, about twice the age when oysters in the bay typically die of disease. Scientists want to know if the large oysters may have developed resistance to disease that could be passed on to create sturdier subsequent generations.Improving enforcement is another goal of the blue-ribbon panel. In the past, it found, fines weren't enough to deter those intent on violating harvest rules.So, VMRC has established a zero-tolerance policy for oyster violations in state waters. A waterman must have a state license to work commercially, plus a special permit to harvest in the Rappahannock. A significant oyster violation now results in immediate confiscation of the permit; a waterman also faces a one-year suspension of his license for a first oyster offense and additional years for subsequent offenses.MARINE POLICE OFFICERS WILL PATROL THE RIVER Virginia has 77 Marine Police officers who patrol more than 5,100 miles of shoreline on the Chesapeake Bay and Atlantic Ocean. They conduct inspections, investigate accidents and conduct search and rescue missions. They bust illegal oyster-shucking and crab-picking operations, and even moonshiners.Pope, who leads the Marine Police station in Gloucester, said, "This is a great opportunity for the watermen to come out here and ply their trade and keep the tradition going."Watermen say they understand that the police are just doing their jobs but that does not mean they accept the regulations."I'd like to see the whole thing opened up so everyone can go to work and make a living and provide for their families," said Mike Croxton Jr., a 47-year-old oysterman from Kilmarnock who works the river with his son, Mike III, in his Chesapeake deadrise, the Tammy C."If you got a farm, you don't fence off one little section and put all your cows on it. They eat that grass all up."

CB and Jane Kemper with assistant Christy Rock are among the 110 exhibitors at the Farmer’s Market in Irvington, VA. The Kempers own and operate Kemper’s Nursery in Farnham, VA and every Saturday during the season you will find them at one of the local markets that rotate through the Northern Neck and Middle Peninsula.