Issues & Actions

The 2005 Oyster Legislative Priorities has three purposes: (1) To enhance the infrastructure that supports oyster restoration activities; (2) To protect and restore water quality and habitat in oyster growing areas; and (3) To conduct research on oyster reef building, and nurturing disease resistant strains of North Carolina's native oyster. Oysters are important to North Carolina as a commercial and recreational fishery, as a natural filter that improves water quality, and as critical habitat for commercially important fishery species including crabs and finfish valued at over $62 million per year.

Restore and increase oyster populations and habitat

Oyster harvests have dropped precipitously since 1902 when 1.8 million bushels of oysters were harvested in North Carolina. In 1988 oyster harvests accounted for 138,000 bushels. Oyster harvests now range in the 40,000 bushels per year range. To reverse this trend, it will be necessary to build an infrastructure that includes three State oyster hatcheries, expanding shell recycling and significantly stepping up oyster rehabilitation and sanctuary projects:

• Oyster Rehabilitation: The Division of Marine Fisheries' Shellfish Rehabilitation Program receives a state appropriation to plant up to 240,000 bushels of cultch material annually, i.e. oyster shell, clamshell or marl. In the mid-1990's, the North Carolina Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Oysters recommended the planting 400,000 bushels per year. This appropriation would increase cultch plantings to 400,000 bushels.
• Oyster Sanctuaries: Oyster sanctuaries involve planting mounds of oyster shell or other cultch material to create reefs that attract oyster settlement, growth and reproduction in natural settings to increase oyster stocks. The Division of Marine Fisheries is in the final phase of creating nine oyster sanctuaries through grants from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, along with funds from The Nature Conservancy and mitigation monies. Ongoing state funds will be necessary for this program to continue and build. This appropriation would create two oyster sanctuaries per year (2,500 tons of cultch material at each of two sites). Includes three staff positions.
• Oyster Shell Recycling: Oyster shells are routinely discarded into landfills by restaurants and consumers. This practice both increases the volume in landfills and reduces the availability of oyster shells for planting in NC estuaries. An Oyster Shell Recycling Coordinator will help to organize and expand volunteer efforts throughout the Coast and Piedmont regions. Oyster shells are then transported from Piedmont restaurants to stockpiles at the coast. Includes one staff position.

• Oyster Hatchery: State oyster hatcheries will provide the necessary seed stock for oyster rehabilitations, oyster sanctuaries and aquaculture. Three State oyster hatcheries should be operated by the North Carolina Aquariums and located near colleges or universities to facilitate research on oyster survival, oyster larval production and disease resistant larvae.
• Business Tax Credit for Recycling of Oyster Shells: Restaurants and shucking houses should receive a State tax credit of 50 cents per bushel if they donate oyster shells to the NC Division of Marine Fisheries. Tax credits should also be provided to restaurants for the purchase covered dumpsters to hold oyster shells.

Protect and restore water quality and habitat in shellfish waters

Oyster habitat and water quality are key factors for restoring oyster populations in North Carolina. Oyster waters are highly sensitive to bacterial pollution, rendering them off-limits to harvesting and human consumption. Discharges of stormwater and wastewater must be prohibited from prime oyster growing areas. Undeveloped land near prime oyster growing areas should be preserved or restored. Local governments need access to funds to remove existing discharges of wastewater and stormwater from shellfish waters.

• Prevent Pollution of Prime Shellfish Waters: Stormwater carries fecal coliform bacteria and other pathogens that contaminate and often close shellfish waters to commercial harvest. To prevent stormwater contamination of shellfish waters, the state should prohibit new or expanded discharges of stormwater through any stormwater collection system that drains to a prime shellfish growing area or unnamed freshwater tributary to a prime shellfish growing area, except in the case of a storm exceeding the ten-year/24 hour storm. A stormwater collection system is any conduit including but not limited to pipes, ditches, swales, drains, canals, gutters, curbs or impervious surfaces such as roads. A prime shellfish growing area includes any shellfish growing area in which all or part of the shellfish growing area is classified as Outstanding Resource Waters by the NC Division of Water Quality, and shall include, but not be limited to, shellfish growing areas A-2, A-3, B-1, B-7, B-9, C-1, C-2, C-3, D-3, E-4, E-6, F1, F-2, F-5, F-7, G-3, G-4, and G-7 as delineated by the NC Division of Environmental Health. Additional growing areas may be determined to be prime oyster growing areas through a proclamation by the Director of the Division of Marine Fisheries.
• Improve detection of pollution sources affecting shellfish waters: The Division of Environmental Health has developed a pilot project that examines the sources of pollution that affect shellfish growing areas. This pilot project should be expanded to all shellfish growing areas in the coastal region so that the sources of pollution can be reduced by appropriate regulatory agencies. The Division of Environmental Health requires four additional staff and operational support to expand the single county pilot project to all counties with shellfish waters.

  Description	Amount
  Appropriation for GIS staff person	$69,000 (R)
  Appropriation for three (3) shoreline surveyors to expand the pilot project coastwide	$168,000 (R)

• Coastal Fishlands Program: The Department of Environment and Natural Resources through its One North Carolina Naturally Program should be provided $100 million through a bond issue for land purchases and wetlands restorations near priority oyster growing areas.
• Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Reserve: A reserve account should be created for the implementation of recommendations identified in the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan (CHPP). The CHPP was developed by the state's Coastal Resources, Environmental Management, and Marine Fisheries commissions, as required under the Fisheries Reform Act of 1997, to protect and restore resources critical to commercial and recreational fisheries.

• Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Coordinator: A new position is needed within the Office of the Secretary of Department of Environment and Natural Resources to coordinate the implementation of recommendations in the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan.

• Stormwater retrofits: The installation of stormwater retrofits should become an equal priority with water and sewer projects under the federal Clean Water State Revolving Fund (CWSRF) as well as other grants or loans established under state bond authority through the NC Rural Center and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Stormwater retrofits that remove outfalls from SA waters should be given the highest priority in the SRF rating system. SRF loans made to eligible entities to install stormwater retrofits that remove outfalls from shellfish waters should be provided interest-free as an incentive.
• Oyster Ombudsman: The Department of Environment and Natural Resources should create a two-year pilot program in which an oyster ombudsman is located in one of the regional offices of the Division of Marine Fisheries. The oyster ombudsman would be responsible for organizing public and private partnerships to protect and restore oyster-growing areas and for acting on behalf of oysters.

Shellfish Research Initiative

Research into oyster production and survival is critical to the success of oyster restoration efforts in North Carolina waters. It will be necessary to plot a hydrodynamic model for oyster sanctuary projects to insure that water currents transport oyster larvae into productive oyster growing areas. MSX and dermo have taken a huge toll on oyster survival in Pamlico Sound. Developing a disease resistant strain will take considerable effort by the research community to achieve.

• Shellfish Research Program: A Shellfish Research Program, associated with the state university system such as NC Sea Grant, is needed to fund studies needed to determine optimal conditions for oyster reef building and placement, and for nurturing disease-resistant oysters. The Shellfish Research Program could be a virtual institute with funding modeled on the Blue Crab Research Program.

• Professor of Shellfish Research: The University of North Carolina System should create Professor of Shellfish Research. To fill the professorship, the UNC System could conduct a nationwide search for an individual to lead North Carolina's research efforts to bring back oysters.