- ABOVE: Sara Chaves Beam checks on some of the 20,000 or so oysters she is growing in the Rappahannock River at the town of Saluda.

- ABOVE: Sara Chaves Beam checks on some of the 20,000 or so oysters she is growing in the Rappahannock River at the town of Saluda.

The Northern Neck Land Conservancy is trying to preserve a rural way of life in the region. This farmland, located near Nomini Grove in Westmoreland County, is an example of what the conservancy is working to protect. The group works closely with landowners. ABOVE: Sara Chaves Beam checks on some of the 20,000 or so oysters she is growing in the Rappahannock River at the town of Saluda.

- ABOVE: Sara Chaves Beam checks on some of the 20,000 or so oysters she is growing in the Rappahannock River at the town of Saluda.

Ecologist who got her love of the water in Fredericksburg working to make a difference.

Date published: 8/22/2006

SALUDA--Carefully tiptoeing through a section of large rock riprap by the river's edge, Sara Chaves Beam goes out to visit her babies.

Not the two youngsters she and her husband, Jim, are raising at a home just down the lane from this tranquil piece of shoreline on the Rappahannock River.

No, these "babies" are the 20,000 or so oysters that Beam--environmental scientist, educator and oyster farmer--is raising in mesh bags anchored in the shallows just downriver from the Middle Peninsula town of Urbanna.

"I'm doing everything as simply as I can," said Beam, pulling up a polyester bag filled with oysters rapidly fattening in the warm river water. "They're in small bags I can handle easily. They're in water I can wade to. And they're close enough to make it easy to check on them."

The fact that the growing happens in a way that cleanses the ecosystem, with oysters filtering the water they cycle through for nutrients, is a main reason Beam is raising these tasty bivalves.

"I call the operation Sunrise Sea Farm and our motto is 'Saving the Bay one oyster at a time,'" said Beam, popping open one of the oyster bags to reveal dozens of healthy oysters, now bigger than silver dollars.

Chaves, who has degrees in environmental and marine science and once taught at the University of Maine, says its easy to trace her passion for the environment and the bay to her childhood here in Fredericksburg.

Her parents, Juan and Marcia Chaves, have a home just a stone's throw from the Rappahannock River in Falmouth. Grandparents who lived in Fredericksburg when she was growing up gave her and her brother another spot to pull out fishing poles and cast for catfish.

"Toss in a farm my family has a connection to in King George, a place we'd visit on Sundays growing up, and time we'd spend in spots like Colonial Beach, Potomac Creek and Nags Head, and that's where I got my love of nature and the water," said Chaves. "It's always been a part of my life."

These days, the Stafford High School graduate is serving as a steward to the land and water in a variety of ways.

They include:

Date published: 8/22/2006