PORTSMOUTH, Va. — Many people think oysters are pretty good on a plate.
But do you know just how good they are for our environment?
News 3 anchor Pari Cruz recently got off the anchor desk and spent time with some Portsmouth students out at Portsmouth City Park. They have been working on a joint initiative to get more oysters in our waters and make them cleaner for years to come.
“I was really excited,” said Manor High School Sophomore Anjeanette Williams.
The Chesapeake Bay Foundation, the Elizabeth River Project, and the Chesapeake Oyster Alliance were joined by Portsmouth high school students Tuesday to deploy ten oyster reef balls along the Elizabeth River.
“These reef balls will give them another avenue to do some hands-on research, explore oyster restoration, and the ecosystem of the Chesapeake Bay,” said Jackie Shannon, Virginia’s oyster restoration manager for the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
“This is a large and very ambitious goal that is set in place to help meet the major water quality goals of the Chesapeake Bay,” said Tanner Council from the Chesapeake Oyster Alliance.
As part of Oyster Camp, students counted the number of baby oysters, called "spats," on the reef balls, and then recorded the average from their samples.
“I’m seeing a lot on the inside,” said Anjeanette. “The outside, I see some, but it’s not as much as the inside.”
These hollow oyster balls are made from marine-safe concrete. Once placed in the water, they will help provide a habitat, just like a natural oyster reef.
“One mature oyster can filter fifty gallons of water a day, so oysters are so good at filtering out pollutants and nutrients in our water to help improve our water quality,” said Sarah McBride, a school outreach coordinator with the Elizabeth River Project.
Five out of the ten balls don’t have any spats on them and will serve as a control variable to see how the balls with the spats are doing in this setting.
The partnership is an important one for the future of our area; not to mention getting kids involved at a younger age to appreciate our environment and work toward future solutions.
“It’s so important because these kids live here in Portsmouth where we’re facing environmental challenges like flooding, and poor water quality, and sea level rise, and climate change, and all kinds of issues,” said McBride. “So the kids are going to be inheriting and working to solve these issues in the future.”
Periodically students will be coming back to measure the growth of the oysters for years to come.
This is all part of a project by the Chesapeake Oyster Alliance’s goal of adding ten billion new oysters to the Chesapeake Bay by 2025.
