Bringing Oysters Back to Town

Chesapeake Bay is a case study. It was once home to what were probably the largest oyster reefs in the United States, yielding around 15 million bushels of oysters a year in the late 19th century. The oysters used to filter the entire bay every three to four days. Even 20 years ago the bay still produced a couple million bushels a year. Then the diseases arrived. By last year, the harvest had dropped to 100,000 bushels. The oysters that remain now manage to filter the bay three to four times a year. And the ecosystem has changed. Sunlight can't penetrate the now-murky water. Plants can no longer grow on the bottom. During the summer, large areas become oxygen-starved (hypoxic), hostile to animal life.

"The degree that the oyster as a living part of the ecosystem, as a filter feeder, was able to keep the bay clear of nutrients is a very important function," says William Eichbaum, chair of the Maryland Oyster Advisory Commission in Washington, D.C. "And it's gone."

Intensive restoration efforts have so far failed to reestablish breeding oyster populations. And yet, Mr. Eichbaum and others think such efforts may be at a turning point. Oyster harvesters simply can't live off what's left. Many are moving to aquaculture. That's good news for the bay's beleaguered oysters, he says. Able to reproduce without pressure from the harvest, oysters will have a chance to rebuild habitat – to form structures that, by rising above the seafloor, help them avoid low-oxygen conditions and silt. With healthier reefs, oysters will have a chance to develop a resistance to the exotic parasites, says the University of Maryland's Professor Boesch. "They're going to have to confront the disease," he says.

Cervino hopes to help the oysters in New York in a slightly different manner. He's not sure how the electrified metal helps oysters fight off disease, but he suspects that by making their lives easier with a mineral-rich substrate, their ability to resist disease is strengthened.

"I'm a bottom-up guy," Cervino says. Then he recites his mantra, taken from the 1989 movie "Field of Dreams": "If you build it, they will come."