Northeast Region Oyster Restoration

The N.C. Coastal Federation creates new oyster habitat all along the coast each year to provide valuable habitat area for oysters and other species, as well as to improve water quality in our coastal environment.

The N.C. Coastal Federation and its partners in 2004 formed a Northern Oyster Work Group as part of the federation’s effort to restore oyster habitat. The group was charged with writing a restoration plan for the waters where oyster beds are never exposed by low tides. The subtidal region stretches from the southern half of Roanoke Island south to Cedar Island and the Neuse River. Along with the federation, the group includes:

The state Division of Marine Fisheries and The Nature Conservancy had already been working to restore oyster habitat by piling limestone marl in Pamlico Sound to form small sanctuaries. The stone replaced some of the oyster rock broken off by dredges during more than a century of heavy fishing.

The new reefs were designed to protrude into the top part of the water table, where young oysters can find more light, oxygen and food. Larvae quickly settled on the rock and grew. They also survived the onset of the diseases that have decimated the oyster populations. But in the breadth of Pamlico Sound, the reefs were only small dots.

Members of the northern group agreed that more reefs need to be built. Consulting 200-year-old maps that show the historic location of oyster rock, they decided to focus restoration efforts along bays and shorelines in mainland Dare and Hyde counties and in Pamlico County. The maps were drawn in the 1880s by Francis Winslow. Ocracoke fisherman Gene Balance compiled information from them and brought it to the work group.

It’s one thing to put oyster rock back in the sound, and something else to clean up the water so young oysters can grow and thrive. Dozens of canals empty into the areas of shoreline targeted for restoration. These outfalls carry large quantities of fresh water. Because young oysters need steady salinity levels, pulses of fresh water can be deadly. Work group members agreed that some land-based restoration projects are needed before new oyster rock can be placed in the waters near shore. Through a grant from the Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust, the federation convened a separate group of stakeholders in mainland Hyde and Dare counties to look for sites where ditches and canals might be closed. After surveying the county’s drainage systems and talking with land owners, staff members identified an area of Hyde County where the hydrology might be restored on thousands of acres of farmland that drains to the sound. Engineers from N.C. State University are currently putting together a hydrologic model to see if water can be held in irrigation ponds, shunted into natural sloughs, and diverted into marshes and swamp forests.

The Northern Work Group also produced a long-term plan for oyster recovery in subtidal waters that includes targets for restoration projects on land and in the water and ideas and targets for environmental education programs. The plan was presented to the public at a coastwide forum in August 2007. Members meet occasionally to monitor the progress they’ve made and plan new initiatives.


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