Marinetics' success comes as state natural resources officials are struggling to restore the bay's natural oyster population. Millions of federal dollars have been spent on putting more oysters in the water - many of which watermen are later allowed to harvest. Millions more from the state budget was approved to build a new dock at the University of Maryland's Horn Point hatchery, only a few miles away from Marinetics. And a state oyster commission is looking at several options to restore the species, including a moratorium on harvesting wild oysters.
Chris Judy, who runs the shellfish program at the Department of Natural Resources, said there's room for both a public fishery and private aquaculture. "I congratulate them for having disease-free oysters. That's a great achievement," Judy said. "I'm glad to hear of their results. I'll call them up and discuss what they're doing. It'll be great to know."
Feeding restaurants
Nobody at Marinetics will be waiting by the phone - these days, the workers spend most of their time outside, fetching oysters from floats to fill restaurant orders. The firm, which now does business as the Choptank Oyster Co., sells its "Choptank Sweets" in Annapolis and on the Eastern Shore, including at Bobby's Restaurant near Cambridge. There, chef Paul Shiley prepares oysters on the half-shell topped with crab meat and bacon.
"Everybody has loved them," Shiley said.
Shiley used to buy from watermen. But now, he mostly buys from McClarren - he can get oysters all year, and they are clean and of uniform size. "For what we are here, a white tablecloth restaurant, it's nice to have the consistency," Shiley said.
Jessup seafood distributor Billy Martin began selling Choptank Sweets after reading an article about the company in an Easton newspaper. He drove down for a tour; he and McClarren counted eight dolphins in a small stretch of the river made cleaner by the filtering of the oysters.
"I thought, `Dolphins, in the Choptank River,' " Martin said. "I've been here all my life. I've never seen that."
He's been Marinetics' distributor ever since. Two weeks before Christmas, he bought more than 8,000 oysters. Maze still wants to research diseases, but so far he hasn't had much to work with - none of the farm's oysters appear to have been infected.
In the meantime, the young crew is determined to make the long, cold days fun. Each has a coat hook named for one of the Marx brothers. Fridays are beer-tasting days.
On the white bulletin board, McClarren's 5-year-old son has scrawled his name. Above it, is a quote Maze wrote: No good turn ever goes unpunished.
"That's from our bitter days, when we were having problems," McClarren said. "But we're not like that anymore."
rona.kobell@baltsun.com
