In Thursday's Evening Sun, it was reported that a contractor received all of the $3 million the state spends on its oyster promulgation program. Actually, the contractor gets only part of the money.
Dawn breaks over the inky surface of the Chester River as George O'Donnell readies his oyster boat for the day's harvest.
He positions his vessel alongside about 20 others that bob above an oyster bar. As the sun climbs over the horizon, the watermen go to work.
FOR THE RECORD - CORRECTION
Some lower long tongs into the shallows and scoop the oysters from the bottom. O'Donnell works with a diver, Denny Rafter, who picks the oysters from the bar by hand.
For six hours, O'Donnell methodically lowers wire crates to the bottom and hauls them up after the diver has filled them with oysters.
On deck, a crewman quickly sorts the oysters, chops away the barnacles and mussels growing on them and tosses the oysters into a bushel basket. When 30 baskets are full, the day's work is done.
O'Donnell embodies a way of life practiced for generations on Chesapeake Bay. But the tradition is being challenged by an emerging industry called aquaculture, which has more in common with farming than fishing.
In a shed on marshy land in Somerset County, Max Chambers reaches into a tank of swirling water and retrieves a handful of tiny shells. They are the offspring of the oysters he has bred.
When the oysters are a bit larger, Chambers will put them in mesh trays and set them outside in the waters of the Manokin River. Then, if disease doesn't kill them, they will be sold to other farmers who will grow them until they are large enough to be eaten.
Chambers calls watermen like O'Donnell "buffalo hunters" and says it's time they stopped stripping the bay of its dwindling supply of oysters. Chambers says that one way to conserve the bay's resources is through aquaculture, in which businessmen grow seafood instead of catching it.
"I think there's great hope for aquaculture," he says. "But we have to change a social philosophy."
O'Donnell, the waterman, wants to preserve a way of life that his forefathers practiced 150 years ago. He wants to continue harvesting crabs and oysters from the bay and its tributaries. And he is not convinced that man can produce a better oyster than nature.
While waterman like O'Donnell say they would be willing to invest in aquaculture if it proves profitable, they fear that in the meantime, unrestricted efforts to promote aquaculture could put them out of business.
