Planning is underway to select locations for up to six restored oyster reefs in bays of the Mission-Aransas Estuary.
Project partners are currently considering public feedback, including insights written in notes and scrawled onto printed out maps during a Tuesday public meeting in Rockport, with plans to survey sites this spring.
Public input was sought from oyster fishers, anglers and community members on where oyster reefs are degraded or if stakeholders didn’t want a certain site selected because the restored reefs will be non-harvestable, said Zachary Olsen, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department coastal fisheries division ecosystem resource program director.
Members of the public will also have the opportunity to participate through the Sink Your Shucks program. Reclaimed oyster shells from local restaurants will be used to construct at least one of the reefs in St. Charles Bay, a process with which volunteers will be able to assist.
The reefs, which will be constructed in 2027, will be protected from harvest. The reefs will be built with large boulders that cannot be fished with dredges, or located in areas where regulatory provisions restrict harvest.
The Mission-Aransas Estuary includes Aransas Bay and Copano Bay, as well as St. Charles, Mission and Redfish bays. In December, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department announced that it had secured $8.2 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for large-scale oyster restoration, a response to heavily degraded oyster reefs in the area. The funding is the result of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
The Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies has restored over 20 acres of oyster reef in St. Charles Bay since 2017.
Healthy oyster reefs have numerous impacts on the environment, including filtering water, serving as a habitat for marine life and protecting shorelines form storm surges and erosion.
But according to a Texas Parks and Wildlife Department news release, oyster habitats have declined 85% worldwide and 50% in the Gulf of Mexico due to coastal development, degraded water quality, hurricanes and drought and fishing pressures.
“Essentially, when an oyster reef becomes degraded, there’s been too much shell and oyster removed from that reef,” Olsen said. “Oysters really rely on having hard clean substrate for reefs so that they can spawn and new oysters can settle.”
Restoring an oyster reef boils down to replacing the removed shells with hard substrate, which could include returned shells or rock, limestone or crushed concrete.
The restored reefs will make up only a very small percent of the total reef acreage in the bays, Olsen said.
Once the new material is put in the water, oysters begin to naturally settle in the restored reefs, Olsen said, becoming a self-sustaining reef as the oysters grow shells. Left untouched, the restored reefs will serve as “small islands of reef” closed to harvest, seeding other harvested reefs in the area, Olsen said.
The end goal is a more robust oyster population, Olsen said.
In addition to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, partners include the Coastal Bend Bays and Estuaries Program, Mission-Aransas National Estuarine Research Reserve, The Nature Conservancy and Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi’s Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies.
These partners have tackled oyster restoration projects before, but the current effort is “one of the largest oyster restoration initiatives to date in Texas,” according to the release. Previously restored reefs include sites in Lap Reef in Copano Bay, Grass Island in Aransas Bay, Carlos Reef in Carlos Bay and a spot near Goose Island State Park in St. Charles Bay.
In total, between 20 and 50 acres of broodstock sanctuary reefs will be restored. Each individual reef will be between three and 10 acres large, allowing for up to six separate reefs.
Currently, the partners are planning for up to three sites in Copano Bay or Aransas Bay, up to two sites in the Mesquite Bay complex and one site in St. Charles Bay. All of the reefs except for the St. Charles Bay reef will be subtidal, deeper water reefs.
The shallower St. Charles Bay site would allow for volunteer involvement through the Sink Your Shucks program.
The Mesquite Bay complex and St. Charles Bay are both currently closed to oyster harvest by the state.
Potential sites for restoration include sites in Shellbank Reef, Port Bay Entrance, Smith Channel, Copano Reef and Lap Reef Bank in Copano Bay; Scotch Tom, Mack Reef, Long Reef and Poverty Reef in Aransas Bay; Third Chain, Ayers Reef and Second Chain in the Mesquite Bay complex; and another St. Charles Bay site near Goose Island State Park.
Paula Harper, from Michigan, scrapes out an oyster shell to make room for sauce at the 44th annual Fulton Oysterfest on March 4, 2023.
The project team sought public feedback Tuesday evening in Rockport. Future stakeholder workshops will focus on how oyster reefs are monitored, how to be involved in reef construction and final construction and results.
According to the meeting presentation, the public can also provide feedback by emailing Joan Garland at jgarland@utexas.edu.
This spring, the team will collect data to see if proposed sites are appropriate for reef restoration.
Once sites are selected, the team will need to acquire permits. The design, engineering and construction phase is scheduled for 2026. Construction will begin in 2027.
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This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Efforts underway to restore oyster reefs in Mission-Aransas Estuary
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