Baltimore Bringing Oyster Restoration to Its Polluted Inner Harbor

This article appeared in the Baltimore Business Journal discussing how they are placing oysters in their Inner Harbor. 

We thought it was interesting to see a major city in a state with a major oyster industry moving forward with oysters to clean their waters. Perhaps it will lead others to follow suit or their regulatory authorities to allow it to happen. 

Baltimore Maryland Restoring Oysters to its Inner Harbor

165,000 baby oysters are coming to the Inner Harbor in cleanup effort

Sarah Meehan

Sep 19, 2014, 2:52pm EDT

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The Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore Inc.and Chesapeake Bay Foundation are doubling their efforts to improve water quality through oysters. The program, now called the Great Baltimore Oyster Partnership, launched last October when local businesses and two Baltimore schools banded together with the Waterfront Partnership and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation to plant oysters at five gardens around the harbor.

It's part of the Waterfront Partnership's initiative to make the Inner Harbor swimmable and fishable by 2020.

The teams recently harvested the first oysters and transported them to an oyster sanctuary in the Chesapeake Bay, where Adam Lindquist, Healthy Harbor coordinator for the Waterfront Partnership, said they released about 50,000 oysters. With a 70 percent survival rate, that means they originally planted more than 71,000 oysters — almost twice as many as they originally thought.

"To see such a survival rate shows how much opportunity there is to improve the condition of the harbor,” Lindquist said, noting the high survival rate was surprising given the harsh winter.

This time, 165,000 baby oysters will join the harbor ecosystem, supported by the care of volunteers from local businesses including Legg Mason Inc., T. Rowe Price Group Inc. andBaltimore Gas & Electric Co. Whitman Requardt & Associates LLP is the newest company on board. Each business donates $10,000 to the Waterfront Partnership as part of the initiative, and the funds go toward producing the annual Healthy Harbor Report Card.

This time around, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is also opening the sponsorship to the public. Individuals can sponsor oyster cages with the help of the Downtown Sailing Center and Baltimore Marine Centers, which will also house oyster gardens this year.