Five years, $15 million and still no ruling on Asian oysters

After five years and more than $15 million, a major study of how best to restore oysters in the Chesapeake Bay was released Tuesday that includes a curious twist: It recommends no recovery strategy, at least not yet.

Led by the Army Corps of Engineers in Norfolk and involving 90 scientists across the country, the study has long been portrayed as the necessary compass for charting a new course in reviving Bay oysters, a signature species ravaged by disease, pollution, lost habitat and overfishing.

But study leaders said Tuesday that they have not reached a consensus yet - especially on the contentious issue of introducing a new Asian species into the Bay, to buttress nearly vanquished native stocks - and want to hear from the public and continue deliberating before choosing a path.

They set six public meetings next month - three in Virginia and three in Maryland - and expect to make a final decision by June 2009.

"This has been a much more complex enterprise than we anticipated," said Tom O'Connell, fisheries director for the Maryland Department of Natural Resources.

Virginia seafood merchants, watermen and others in the struggling oyster industry, who have supported an Asian introduction for years, reacted to the study with frustration and dismay.

"This give us no direction whatsoever," said Frances Porter, executive director of the Virginia Seafood Council, a Newport News-based trade group.

Porter and others said they had not seen or read the study, known as an environmental impact statement, as the Army Corps had not yet released copies to them or the public. Corps officials said the document would be posted on the Norfolk district's Web site by Tuesday afternoon.

An executive summary provided to the media in advance includes a bevy of options, including a possible moratorium on harvesting native oysters for as long as 10 years, greatly expanding oyster farming opportunities, spending millions of dollars to rebuild oyster reefs, and spreading Asian imports at various sites throughout the Bay.

While the study does not recommend a preferred plan, it makes clear that a significant investment of between $500 million and $700 million will be needed over the next decade to bring back oyster populations to levels typically seen between 1920 and 1970.

It also stresses that a combination of actions will be required to forge a comeback, and concludes that an Asian-only approach would not work.

"No one thing will do it," said Mark Mansfield, a corps official in Norfolk who oversaw the study. "It'll take a combination of things."

Environmental groups said the study underscores what they have been arguing for years - that the Asian species still is too risky and that restoration efforts should continue stressing the native, Eastern oyster.

"With the right investments and management decisions by the public and private sector, including our organizations, we can have native oyster populations that provide significant ecological and economic benefits - all without the risk of unintended consequences," said Michael Lipford, Virginia director of The Nature Conservancy.

The conservancy and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, both of which are involved in native oyster programs, released a joint statement supporting more money and energy for oyster farming, research and experimentation.

The impetus for the study was interest in Virginia and Maryland, dating to 2003, to experiment with Asian oysters in the open waters of the Bay. The states had grown weary from years of expensive promises and scant progress toward reviving native stocks.

Fearing a collapse, they wanted to try something new. But before they could move, they needed federal approval. So the study began, in 2004, with state and federal governments chipping in for the cost, now at more than $15 million.

At the core of the policy debate is an Asian species known as Suminoe or ariakensis, which hails from the China Sea.

In five years of protected tests in Virginia waters, Suminoe has grown faster to market size than natives, and has survived in the wake of two diseases, MSX and Dermo, that have nearly wiped out domestic stocks.

It is a slightly larger animal than the native oyster, is similar in taste and filters more pollutants in a shorter time. Oysters have been described as "nature's filters," given how they purge Bay waters of algae and sediments.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com