A nice Port Elizabeth image:
140617-A-HS496-005
Image by norfolkdistrict
NORFOLK, Va. (June 17, 2014) – Cherrystone Aqua-Farms employees carefully hand-seed spat-on-shell oysters, which are baby oysters grown and set onto oyster shells in a hatchery, onto a permanent sanctuary oyster reef constructed in the Lafayette River, adjacent to Norfolk International Terminals, Inc.
Last October, Corps contractor Precon Marine Inc. of Chesapeake, Va., began phase two of a 10-year, million, and 411-acre environmental mitigation plan to offset ecological impacts associated with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer’s Craney Island Eastward Expansion, or CIEE, project.
Phase two involved the construction of six permanent sanctuary oyster reefs, totaling 16 acres.
Through a special agreement with the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, Precon Marine Inc. used 39,000 cubic yards of fossil oyster shell dredged from the lower James River to build-up areas where historic reefs were once located.
The layer of fossil shell will serve as the reef base throughout the proposed mitigation area.
The reefs will incorporate knowledge and experience gained from other Corps oyster reef restoration and habitat projects in Virginia’s Great Wicomico, Rappahannock and Lynnhaven rivers, and Tangier and Pocomoke sounds.
The project enters its final phase as the six oyster reefs are carefully hand-seeded with six million spat-on-shell oysters.
The CIEE project, which is expanding Craney Island with dredged material fill that will serve as the base for a new port terminal, is expected to impact the bottom of the Elizabeth River. The project’s environmental mitigation plan uses a “landscape approach,” which allows all three-habitat elements – wetlands creation, oyster restoration and creation, and remediation of Elizabeth River bottom – to thrive and sustain each other.
The Virginia Port Authority, partnering with the Corps, completed first phase of mitigation last November, with an 11-acre wetlands creation project at Paradise Creek Nature Park in Portsmouth, Va.
The Elizabeth and Lafayette rivers benefit from the second phase, which is aimed at restoring a sustainable oyster population.
Once the baby spat are placed onto the oyster reefs, they should help jump-start the reef’s oyster biomass and increase its chances of success, said Corps officials.
“This area along the Lafayette River is ideal for oyster growth because it is located on hard bottom historically used by oysters, and there are wild oyster populations upstream, which hopefully will attract other oysters to the reef,” said Keith Lockwood, Norfolk District’s Technical Support Section chief.
As permanent oyster sanctuary reefs, the areas will be off-limits to shellfish harvesting.
“Hopefully, years from now, we’ll start to see an increase in oyster recruitment along our six sanctuary oyster reefs. Once this increased recruitment occurs, we hope each site experiences a surge in its oyster population that will help build new, naturally-occurring reefs,” said David Schulte, oceanographer in the district’s planning branch. (U.S. Army photo/Gerald Rogers)
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