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NO OYSTERS LEFT? DON'T TELL THEM A haul of fat Potomac River oysters recalls the good old days Date published: 9/15/2009
By RUSTY DENNEN Like ghosts from the past, boats heavy with Potomac River oysters have been pulling up to Rusty Curley's pier in Colonial Beach most mornings for several weeks. Crews of the Stephanie Cheryl, Five Daughters II and a smaller boat yesterday shoveled mounds of the shellfish onto a conveyor belt and into the back of a waiting truck. At a time when the river's oysters are all but gone, what gives? It's a combination of entrepreneurial spirit, luck and help from Mother Nature, Curley said as he watched the scene unfold on Monroe Bay. Curley leases acres of river bottom just outside the bay. Three years ago, he and Ronnie Bevans planted several thousand bushels of "seed" oysters there. Bevans owns Bevans Oyster Co. in Kinsale. Those thumbnail-size oysters, grown in the Great Wicomico River in Northumberland County, are now fat and ready for harvest. "They are living and doing great. Oh, my gosh, they're big, nice oysters," said Curley, who plans to plant more this fall or next spring. Curley says he and Bevans should bring in a total of 5,000 to 6,000 bushels--each worth about $40. The oysters are shucked and packed by Bevans and another processor in the Northern Neck. Their grounds are not to be confused with the Potomac's public oyster grounds--administered by the Potomac River Fisheries Commission--which have all but succumbed to a pair of oyster diseases and over harvesting. Last season's public harvest, river wide, yielded only about 500 bushels. Private growers like Bevans and Curley plant their oysters on leased grounds where they have exclusive rights to harvest them. Bevans' boats scoop the oysters from the bottom with a heavy metal dredge. It takes oysters two to three years to grow from seed to marketable size. But in the Potomac, as watermen, scientists and regulatory agencies have discovered, nothing is guaranteed. Curley and Bevans took a financial risk buying and planting the seed, knowing that the diseases--MSX and Dermo--could kill the tiny oysters or hinder their growth. Or that a hurricane or tropical storm could dump enough fresh water in the river to kill them outright. A tropical storm hit three years ago, several months after the oysters were planted. They survived.
Once again, private enterprise gets the job done while the public option studies the problem.
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