Army Corps team to receive Coastal America Award for native oyster restoration efforts

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The Chesapeake Bay watershed is approximately 64,000 square miles, the Lynnhaven basin is about 64 square miles, and in many ways is a microcosm of the Chesapeake Bay. The watershed is heavily urbanized, with much of the original forested areas now developed, and a sizeable portion of the wetlands once lining the river now lost. In the 1890's, James Baylor, who surveyed all of Virginia's oyster grounds (still often called "Baylor grounds" today) delineated 986 acres of public oyster grounds in the Lynnhaven River, specifically in Broad Bay, Linkhorn Bay, Crystal Lake, and in Lynnhaven Bay.
By the mid-1970s the natural oyster reefs in the Lynnhaven River were essentially gone except for a few scattered patches, less than one acre in size.
All of the Lynnhaven River's waters were closed to shellfish harvest of any sort due to high bacteria levels in the water. The Corps considered this a good candidate site, however, based on the history of high oyster recruitment in the river, it's once-extensive oyster beds, and the remnant oyster population, which was found at very high densities (in places over 1,000 oysters per square meter of stone rip-rap along shorelines), and their large size. It was estimated that there were from 10-20 million oysters, scattered mostly on rip-rap and along marsh edges, throughout the Lynnhaven River system prior to the proposed corps reefs. The large size some of the adults were observed at (5-7" in length), indicate the wild Lynnhaven oyster has significant resistance to the diseases MSX and Dermo, which typically kill native oysters when they are 1-2.5" in length).
The Corps first proposed the Lynnhaven River as a potential restoration site in 2003 and the planning effort began in 2004. Several small reefs had been built in the river prior to this planning effort, but unfortunately due to their design and placement, have not done particularly well. By consulting with physical oceanographers and making use of a hydrodynamic model, it was determined that the design of the prior reefs caused them to trap excessive amounts of sediments and their locations are not ideal for receiving or providing oyster larvae, this can still be found most summers in some areas of the Lynnhaven River in high numbers.
The Corps used the hydrodynamic model, to help place the Corps-built reefs in better locations. The Corps also utilized the historic information found on the location of the Baylor Grounds in the Lynnhaven River, which had been lost for many years when the Commonwealth of Virginia removed all Baylor (public) oyster grounds from the official oyster beds managed by the state and surrendered them to private industry. So, a combination of modern day computer modeling as well as historic information was consulted to place the reefs.
The reefs were built in two stages, in 2007 and 2008. The City of Virginia Beach provided funding for spat-on-shell, where wild Lynnhaven strain oysters are bred in a hatchery and the resultant larvae are set on shells in the hatchery, then planted on several corps-built reefs identified as being "source reefs," reefs that will, once mature oysters are on them, provide oyster larvae to most areas throughout the Lynnhaven River system. This spat on shell has amounted to over 5,000 bushels of baby oysters, numbering over 10,000,000 planted oysters on the corps "source" reefs.
In total, there are approximately 60-90 million oysters currently on Corps reefs at this time. Many of these have survived the diseases and have grown to large size, especially the City of Virginia Beach spat on shell, some of which are up to 6" long now. The Corps hopes to continue planting more spat on shell to further increase the success of the project by increasing oyster recruitment throughout the river and to construct more reefs - we hope to build about 40 more acres of reefs in the next few years, and to exceed 200 million oysters in the Lynnhaven River.

Coastal America is a partnership of federal agencies, state and local governments, and private organizations whose mission it is to protect, preserve, and restore the nation’s coasts

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Army Corps team to receive Coastal America Award for native oyster restoration efforts

Posted January 6, 2010
By Pamela Spaugy,
Norfolk District Public Affairs

01/06/10 NORFOLK, Va. — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Lynnhaven Oyster Restoration project team will receive the 2009 Coastal America Partnership Award Jan. 14, for their innovative and successful ongoing efforts to restore and protect the coastal environment, specifically, the native American oyster population in the Lynnhaven River.

The award, the only environmental award of its kind given by the White House, will be presented to David Schulte, a marine biologist with the Norfolk District, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Schulte will accept the award on behalf of his efforts and those of 39 other team members who will also attend the ceremony at Steinhilber's Restaurant in Virginia Beach.

Schulte, who is also a doctoral student at the College of William and Mary's, Virginia Institute of Marine Science, has been involved in the restoration project since the Corps initiated the planning effort in 2004.

Virginia Tippie, director of Coastal America, together with Assistant Secretary of the Army (project planning and review) Doug Lamont, will present the plaques and congratulatory letters from President Barack Obama to representatives of each member of the team.

The Corps, partners with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Lynnhaven River Now and the City of Virginia Beach, all of whom, along with endorsement of the Commonwealth of Virginia, were instrumental in starting and continuing the efforts once the Lynnhaven Oyster Restoration Project began. The first Corps-built reefs were constructed in 2007; the next were built in 2008.

The Norfolk District has been involved with native oyster restoration in the Chesapeake Bay since 1999. The first two projects were completed in the lower Rappahannock River and in the Tangier Sound. The projects were designed to primarily augment the commercial oyster fishery but had limited success. The team changed their strategy – one geared towards ecological restoration with hopes of developing self-sustaining oyster populations on restored reefs. Reefs were built at higher relief from the bottom to better mimic historical oyster reef structure in the hope that they would perform better than the prior designs, which are to scatter a thin shell layer a few inches thick over the bottom or to build a series of six-foot-tall mounds in an "upside down, egg-shell crate" configuration. The team also decided to focus on a tributary-by-tributary fashion, starting with small, tidally retentive systems most likely to provide oyster recruits for restored reef habitat.

This new strategy was implemented in the Great Wicomico River in 2004. "The restored reefs are now performing better than we could have hoped," said Schulte.

The findings, which have been published recently in the journal Science, indicate that the restoration project has resulted in a 57-fold increase in the Great Wicomico oyster population and is currently the largest restored oyster reef network in the world. Adult oyster densities are averaging about 700 per square meter of reef, with about 300 young of the year oysters, called "spat," adding up to about 1,000 oysters per square meter of high relief reefs, densities never before recorded in the modern day Chesapeake Bay. What is more remarkable, added Schulte, is that these oysters are all from wild recruitment, not planted "spat-on-shell."

"This is the first time the Chesapeake Bay program goal of a 10-fold increase in native oysters has been met in any location, and we exceeded it by almost six times," said Col. Andrew Backus, commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Norfolk District, which manages the project for the federal government.

Applying the lessons learned from the Great Wicomico River Oyster Restoration project, the Norfolk Corps proposed the next restoration reef network to be built in the Lynnhaven River in 2004. This time, the Corps had more partners willing to help. The collaborative relationship with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science, Lynnhaven River Now, and the City of Virginia Beach, all of who, along with endorsement of the Commonwealth of Virginia, were necessary to get the US Army Corps Lynnhaven Oyster Restoration project constructed.

"I have seen first-hand the positive ecological impact this project has had. We hope to increase the existing 50 to 60 acres of reefs to100 acres and do additional plantings of spat-on-shell baby oysters on some of the restored reefs," he added. According to Schulte, thousands of oysters the Corps protected with aquaculture netting as part of an anti-predator experiment are also thriving at several sites in the river. Early monitoring is showing some of the restored reefs are on a track similar to the older Great Wicomico high relief reefs.

Coastal America's Partnership Award recognizes the collaborative, multi-agency effort that was needed to leverage and combine enough resources to successfully restore, preserve and protect Lynnhaven River's population of native American oysters.

Members of the Lynnhaven Oyster Restoration Project Team include:

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Norfolk District
Virginia Institute of Marine Science
Lynnhaven River Now
City of Virginia Beach

Updated: 07-Jan-2010

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Army Corps team to receive Coastal America Award for native oyster restoration efforts