Local watershed groups are asking Southern Maryland residents to help plant one million baby oysters into the Breton Bay Oyster Sanctuary next month, the latest installment in an eight-year restoration effort that has now placed more than 4.5 million oysters into the bay.
The event is set for Saturday, September 12, at 10 a.m. at Abell’s Wharf, 21620 Abell’s Wharf Road in Leonardtown, with a rain date of Sunday, September 13, according to a press release from the St. Mary’s River Watershed Association. The planting is organized jointly by SMRWA and Friends of St. Clement’s Bay, and organizers are welcoming volunteers of all ages; families are encouraged to attend, and participants are asked to bring a life jacket if they have one.
Lover’s Point reef site in Breton Bay.
Volunteers will help unload roughly 200 bushels of spat-on-shell — baby oysters attached to shell — from trailers, load them onto work vessels, and transport them by boat to the restoration site off Lover’s Point in Breton Bay, per the release. That site has grown to about 1.5 acres since Friends of St. Clement’s Bay began restoration work there in 2017 through the state’s Marylanders Grow Oysters program, starting from an original 0.77-acre patch identified by Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, according to SMRWA’s own project materials.
Oysters are considered a keystone species in the Chesapeake Bay: they filter water, support underwater vegetation, and create habitat for fish and blue crabs, the release states. Breton Bay, a tributary of the Potomac River in St. Mary’s County, was designated a state oyster sanctuary, meaning commercial and recreational harvesting is restricted there specifically to give the population room to recover, according to Southern Maryland Chronicle’s prior reporting on the restoration project. A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day, according to Chesapeake Bay Foundation figures cited in that same coverage.
The restoration push comes against a steep decline. Breton Bay’s oyster population remains below 1% of what it was a century ago, when oysters covered an estimated 48% of the bay’s bottom, according to the release. Organizers say the effort is starting to show results: two independent surveys conducted last fall, using different methodologies, both found the restored reef healthy and growing. SMRWA’s own project updates describe those surveys as part of a broader effort to formally evaluate seven years of plantings. Separately, in April, the Department of Natural Resources identified three additional sites within the sanctuary suitable for reef expansion, adding roughly 19.5 acres of potential oyster habitat, per the release.
The restoration work is carried out with partners including Bell Marine Services, Shore Thing Shellfish LLC, ECOBAY Landscape & Design, and the Southern Maryland Recreational Fishing Organization, according to the release. Organizers say they intend to continue large-scale plantings until the reef can sustain itself without continued intervention.
Volunteers can register at forms.gle/JKC4dss437emjSRMA or by contacting SMRWA’s Emma Green Ewing at 301-395-5757 or emmasmrwa@gmail.com.
