A popular restoration effort of Oysters

[Evansw324]

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has sent out thousands of wire cages over the last decade to people in Maryland and Virginia willing to grow oysters under home docks for nine months and return them for planting on sanctuary reefs on the Chesapeake's tributaries.
Oysters are water-clearing filter feeders but struggle to overcome the poor water quality that plagues all the Chesapeake's critters. As they have been almost wiped out, amateur conservationists are signing on to the growing hobby of home aquaculture.
Oyster is a victim of water pollution and sediment runoff from development. Pollution has led to an advisory against human consumption for oysters raised in most Chesapeake tributaries. The nonprofit environmental group and its volunteers have put roughly 7 million oysters in sanctuaries since 1997.
Volunteers pay $75 for four oyster cages and a seminar on how to raise them. In the fall, they get several thousand baby oysters and instructions on how to raise them. The volunteers tie the cages to docks, leaving them a few inches below the water, and haul them out twice a month to rinse them.
Raising oysters for several months near the surface helps keep oysters from getting silted over, a major cause of oyster demise in the Chesapeake. Rinsing the Oyster keeps muck off and allows the oysters to breathe. After the first year, gardeners can return for a new crop of oysters without paying the fee.
In late May and early June, the volunteers return the oysters about an inch long to the foundation, which deposits the oysters on reefs, usually in tributaries, that are off-limits to commercial harvesting.
The home oyster gardening effort yields great rewards in educating citizens and giving them a chance to participate in Chesapeake restoration, participants say.
Mr. Dick Weekley, who is active in civic affairs, appreciated the gracious efforts of the amateur conservationists to help bring the struggling Oysters back.

[Bostongambler]

I love Oysters