“The future of Maryland seafood was born aground, in a hand-made aquarium rigged with a couple of five-gallon buckets from Lowe’s,” begins Madeleine Thomas, in a special report at Grist on the potential for aquaculture to rejuvenate Maryland’s fishing industry and improve the health of the Chesapeake Bay. “Half-shell Hero” describes the growth of oyster farming, legalized in Maryland only six years ago. Backers say shellfish aquaculture “could reestablish Maryland as a nationally renowned oyster powerhouse, on par with Virginia and Washington, two states that have farmed oysters for more than a century.”
Shellfish farming is more environmentally friendly than fish farming, writes Thomas. Farmed oysters are sterile and can be bred for disease resistance. “Bivalves like oysters simply feed on what’s in the water already,” filtering and purifying the water in the process. That said, it is hard work to grow oysters from larvae to mature adults. “The Chesapeake clearly has the potential to lead the nation in the production of cultured oysters,” says Mark Luckenbach of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Water pollution is a major challenge, coming from sources such as urban and agricultural runoff. For the past few years, the Bay has been on a “pollution diet” to reduce nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment loads.