DATE: Wednesday, October 29, 1997           TAG: 9710290663

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: NEWPORT NEWS                      LENGTH:   54 lines

OYSTER-MOVING PROJECT TO BE REPEATED THE GOAL IS TO REVIVE THE ONCE-THRIVING CHESAPEAKE BAY SHELLFISH POPULATION.

Virginia is proposing to transplant thousands more oysters from the Chesapeake Bay to manmade reefs in sheltered rivers in hopes of engineering a comeback of the troubled seafood favorite.

Parasites, pollution and overharvesting have pushed oyster stocks to near collapse throughout the Bay, leaving Virginia and Maryland scrambling to revive a species once thought to be nearly infinite.

Last year, Virginia finally had some success. And Tuesday, the Virginia Marine Resources Commission celebrated by unanimously endorsing a nearly identical project for this winter, costing about $65,000.

It goes like this: The state pays watermen to gather as many as 2,500 bushels of what scientists believe are disease-resistant oysters, found in two fishing inlets of the Bay, Tangier and Pocomoke sounds.

The oysters are then carried by boat to an artificial reef - last year, it was to a mountain of shells laid in the Great Wicomico River - where the adults are planted and left to spawn under more suitable conditions.

Jim Wesson, state director of oyster conservation, reported Tuesday that the oysters reproduced like crazy over the summer, creating a huge crop of newborns that hopefully carry the same resistance to deadly diseases that their parents somehow developed in the wild.

If formally approved next month, a second transplanting would begin Dec. 1. As outlined by Wesson, the state would again pay watermen to grab up to 2,500 bushels from Tangier and Pocomoke sounds. This year, though, they would move them to two other manmade reefs, in Pungoteague Creek and the Piankatank River, where conditions are similar to those in the Great Wicomico River.

If successful there, Wesson said, he would like to move some of the reef-grown oysters back to Tangier and Pocomoke sounds, in hopes of jump-starting a revival within the open waters of the Bay.

Virginia closed the Bay to public oystering in 1993, mostly because there were hardly any left to catch.

Tommy Leggett, the only waterman sitting on the commission, asked Wesson if the state could double its efforts this year, and perhaps spread the disease-resistant oysters further.

But Wesson said no, that state funding for his work is nearly exhausted. He said the transplant project would cost about $66,000; his program currently has about $70,000 in the bank.

To save money and spark community involvement, the state also is working with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and local schools in Hampton Roads to grow baby oysters. Once strong enough, the youngsters, called spat, will then be set on a reef built earlier this year in the Lynnhaven River in Virginia Beach.

Students also are raising oysters for planting on another local reef, planned to open next year in the Western Branch of the Elizabeth River. The project has been funded in part by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

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