
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 27, 1991                   TAG: 9102270592
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                                LENGTH: Short

STATE BUDGETS LESS FOR OYSTER CROP REVIVAL

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission approved a plan Tuesday to spend about one-fifth as much money this year as last year to revive the state's oyster crop.

"The oyster is as low as it's ever been," said Bruce J. Barber, a marine scientist at the College of William and Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science. "I don't know that even if we had an unlimited amount of money we would be able to turn things around."

Unlimited funds is one thing the state does not have. The General Assembly last week adopted a budget to plug the state's $2.2 billion revenue shortfall.

The commission approved $187,500 for oyster repletion. Last year, the commission spent $972,696, and more than $1.25 million in 1989.

The oysters in the Chesapeake Bay have been declining for three decades. Two parasites - Dermo and MSX - have decimated the oysters, leaving only a few Virginia beds uninfected.

Last year's harvest yielded 273,046 bushels of market-sized oysters, compared to 1958's four million bushels. In 1897, the harvest neared seven million.

This year there is enough money to transplant 75,000 bushels of young oysters from the Piankatank River to other waters in hope that they reproduce and to clean James River oyster beds, where oysters spawn.

by CNB