Asian Oyster Backers Seek First Test in Open Waters

By Scott Harper, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Oct. 26–NEWPORT NEWS — The Virginia Seafood Council asked state regulators Tuesday to allow the first open-water release of Asian oysters into the Chesapeake Bay, a controversial proposal that scientists and environmentalists argued is too risky and premature.

Specifically, the seafood council wants the state to plant 10,000 of the disease-tolerant, sterilized Asian oysters onto a small patch of public harvest ground at the bottom of the Piankatank River, a waterway at the tip of Virginia’s Middle Peninsula that flows directly into the Bay.

The oysters would be captured and sold by watermen after reaching market size, probably within a year — the beginning, advocates described, of a new commercial species in Virginia waters.

The head of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, William Pruitt, is empowered by a new state law to approve of the move, which, if made, almost certainly would spark a legal showdown with federal officials and environmental groups opposed to the experiment.

Pruitt said Tuesday that he would make his decision within 60 days, and pledged to caucus with scientists, lawyers, environmentalists, seafood merchants, fishermen and others before then.

His commission sent a symbolic message in support of introducing the Asian oysters, though, voting 7-1 in favor of the seafood council’s plan.

Cynthia Jones, a fisheries biologist at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, cast the lone no vote.

“Remember that a haphazard introduction can be forever,” Jones warned.

She noted how kudzu, an Asian plant species brought to the United States to help control soil erosion, instead exploded into an invasive nightmare for landowners and farmers across the South.

Jones and other scientists urged that Virginia remain patient and finish a federal study of the Asian species — also known as Suminoe or ariakensis, native to waters off Japan, China and Vietnam — that has been ongoing for nearly two years, and may take at least another year to complete.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also supported continued research of the species and its possible implications for the Bay’s ecosystem.

But oyster growers and shucking house owners said they have nearly run out of time. After waiting years for government experts and scientists to reverse a slow, devastating decline in the native Bay oyster, they have little left to harvest or sell.

Pollution, lost habitat, overharvesting and two deadly diseases, known as MSX and Dermo, have nearly wiped out native stocks once thought to be nearly infinite.

The Asian oyster, in controlled tests so far, has shown a tolerance for the two diseases and grows faster than natives.

They also purge more pollutants from waters than the native oyster, field experiments have shown.

Lake Cowart Jr., whose family has shucked oysters on Virginia’s Northern Neck peninsula for decades, choked up when describing how the state’s oyster industry is close to collapse.

“We need an oyster that can grow on the bottom,” Cowart said.

“This would be good for the ecology of the Chesapeake Bay. This would be good for the economy of the Chesapeake Bay.”

Seafood merchants were frustrated to learn Tuesday that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has informed Virginia that a federal permit would be required for the open-water experiment to occur.

“Why would oysters placed on state bottomlands require federal permits?” asked Frances Porter , executive director of the Virginia Seafood Council.

She questioned whether a conflict of interest might exist with the corps, because it not only is the lead agency for native oyster restoration in Virginia, but also is heading the environmental study of a possible introduction of Asian oysters in the Bay.

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