The stakes are high
because the Inland Bays are a major tourist
attraction along the Delaware coast, drawing
anglers, boaters and those interested in water
sports.
Water quality problems have led to massive fish
kills, the arrival of potentially toxic
microorganisms and explosive growth of algae that
deteriorates and causes a rotten-egg smell. Water
quality declines are blamed, in part, on runoff of
nutrients from over-fertilized farms, residential
developments and septic tanks.
The center for the bays is using an $11,000
grant from the National Fish and Wildlife
Foundation to support volunteers who will become
shellfish gardeners in the three environmentally
fragile waterways. The volunteers would nurture
oysters to adulthood. The oysters then would be
added to a stock being built up on a reef in
Indian River Bay that will determine whether
oysters can be raised successfully in the bays.
Ed Lewandowski, education and outreach
coordinator with the nonprofit center, said the
program needs about 25 to 30 volunteers willing to
take on a patch of oysters and tend it from about
May or June through October or November.
The center will provide specially designed
floating oyster cages, empty oyster shells and the
fingernail-size babies, called spat. The baby
oysters will be tested and certified as free of
disease before they are planted in the floats,
center officials said.
Lewandowski said oyster gardeners will be asked
to tend their gardens about once a week, making
sure the floats and shells are free of algae. They
also will need to keep detailed records of things
such as oyster mortality, oyster predators and
growth rates.
Center officials are looking for locations for
the test sites. Volunteers need water access,
preferably from a dock, water with oxygen levels
sufficient to support life even in the summer, and
a minimum low-tide water depth of 2 feet. The
water also cannot be too salty.
The test-site requirements eliminate some of
the most polluted areas of the Inland Bays, such
as dead-end sections of man-made lagoons where
oxygen levels are very low, said James Alderman,
the center's restoration coordinator.
John W. Ewart, an aquaculture specialist at the
University of Delaware Sea Grant Marine Advisory
Service in Lewes, said preliminary results for
oyster growth on the Indian River Bay reef have
been good. The oysters were about the size of a
fingernail when they were planted at the start of
last summer. By late fall, they had grown to the
size of a quarter. The mortality rate was about 15
percent, he said.
Ewart said he thinks the oysters grew quickly
because the water is filled with so many
microscopic marine organisms.
"That's exactly what they like," Ewart said.
Mike Jandzen is one of about 20 people who have
volunteered so far to be oyster gardeners.
"I'm concerned about the bays," said Jandzen,
who lives off Dirickson Creek near Fenwick Island.
"I grew up down here."
Jandzen said he thinks oysters would help
improve water quality and could eventually lead to
the revitalization of Delaware's oyster industry.
Oyster harvesting was once a lucrative practice
in Delaware. Between 1 million and 3 million
bushels were harvested annually in Delaware Bay
until 1950. The Inland Bays were used as a place
to fatten and increase salt levels in mature
oysters before they went to market.
The harvest started to drop in the 1950s and a
dramatic oyster die-off occurred in 1957 linked to
the oyster disease known as MSX. A second disease,
Dermo, turned up in the 1970s, inhibiting oyster
reproduction. Neither is harmful to people.
Delaware has no commercial oyster harvest in
the Inland Bays now, but the state Division of
Fish & Wildlife reopened a limited oyster harvest
in Delaware Bay last year.
