THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 30, 1996 TAG: 9610300417
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS LENGTH: 76 lines
The Virginia Marine Resources Commission endorsed a unique plan Tuesday to preserve a small clutch of oysters that scientists believe are some of the only disease-resistant oysters in the lower Chesapeake Bay.
Under the plan, expected to be formally adopted next month, the state would pay commercial fishermen market price for up to 2,500 bushels of these resilient oysters caught in Pocomoke and Tangier sounds, near the Maryland border.
The total cost is not expected to exceed $45,000.
The adult oysters, some measuring 5 inches long, would then be shipped across the Bay and replanted onto a manmade reef at the mouth of the Great Wicomico River. There, scientists hope, a new breed of resistant oysters could start breeding.
Two diseases, known as MSX and Dermo, which starve oysters to death, are blamed for nearly destroying stocks throughout the Bay. Oyster harvests in Virginia and Maryland have dropped to about 1 percent of their past bounties.
The preservation plan is a compromise of sorts. In part, it seeks to placate conservationists, biologists and several state lawmakers who have criticized the commission for voting in September to allow a limited harvest in Pocomoke and Tangier sounds. Both inlets have been closed to oystering since 1993, as has the remainder of the lower Bay.
The commission Tuesday stood by its controversial vote, rejecting a suggestion from commission member Sheppard Davis, of Virginia Beach, that the issue be reconsidered - and perhaps reversed - at next month's regular meeting.
``I think we made the right decision, and I think we took in all the considerations,'' said commission chairman William Pruitt, who cast the deciding vote last month and again Tuesday to let watermen work in the two sounds.
Gene Burreson, an oyster researcher at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, said he still favors leaving the oysters alone in the two sounds. But, he added, moving them to the Great Wicomico reef certainly is better than removing them from the Bay for human consumption.
Still, several lawmakers continue to be upset with the compromise. Davis, a Republican Party activist, said some legislators from Virginia Beach and Norfolk have told him that they may introduce bills next year to close the Bay to oystering if the commission continues to let pockets be harvested.
Last year, despite similar objections from scientists and environmentalists, the commission allowed a limited oyster season in the Rappahannock River. Only about 120 bushels were caught, and the Rappahannock was closed again this year.
During that limited season, the state offered to buy adult oysters from watermen on the river. But the fishermen preferred to sell their catch to private buyers, who offered a higher price.
This year, watermen would be required to sell back to the state all oysters dredged from the bottom of Pocomoke and Tangier sounds, said Jim Wesson, Virginia's director of oyster replenishment.
Beginning Dec. 2, he explained, watermen could mechanically dig up oysters from the two sounds and sell them for about $25 a bushel to state-hired crews aboard a waiting boat.
The craft would then motor to the Great Wicomico River, just south of the Potomac River, and set the adult oysters on a reef built by Wesson that has shown some reproductive success since its inception.
Wesson said ``virtually no'' oysters would die during the trip from the two sounds to the Great Wicomico reef, and he predicted a ``jump starting'' in the number of newborn oysters at the site.
If the state plan is not adopted by the commission at its Nov. 26 meeting, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a prominent environmental group, has offered to pay for a similar preservation effort in the two sounds. ILLUSTRATION: Color Map
Area Shown<
File photos/The Virginian-Pilot
KEYWORDS: DISEASE RESISTANT OYSTERS VIRGINIA MARINE RESOURCES
COMMISSION by CNB