There is no greater tragedy in the decline of the Chesapeake Bay than the collapse of the oyster population. The failure to heed warnings going back more than a century led to a blatant disregard for the science, with oysters now at 3% of late 19th-century levels. This despite the expenditure of more than $500 million in public funds. Overharvest, habitat degradation, diminished water quality and disease-related mortality caused this catastrophic decline.

The eastern oyster is the Bay’s most important species, a “keystone” species as they serve as vital ecosystem engineers. The population could once filter the entire volume of water in the Bay in a matter of 3-5 days, absorbing polluting nutrients and settling sediment. It now would take nearly a year.

If the Bay states met their now abandoned goal of increasing oyster populations by tenfold from 1994 levels by 2010, it would have had the effect of removing 24 million pounds of nitrogen a year from the Bay. That’s 25% of the nitrogen reduction goal necessary to achieve water quality.

Oyster bars also serve as the Bay’s coral reefs, hosting an incredible array of biodiversity as they provide food and shelter to more than 300 species of fish and invertebrates including crabs and rockfish. They historically aided the growth of essential Bay grasses and buffered shorelines from storms. This is an increasingly important service as by 2100, climate change and rising sea levels put at risk more than 110,500 homes in Maryland and Virginia, worth $34 billion.

These delectable bivalves were the Chesapeake’s greatest economic force dominating all other seafood harvests. In 1900, oyster processing was the third largest industry in Baltimore. Ships carried canned Bay oysters to the California Gold Rush. Landings exceeded 25 million bushels in 1884 from the Bay, 15 million bushels from Maryland.

In the 2023-2024 season, a paltry 437,536 bushels were harvested on Maryland public bars, 3% of the 1884 harvest. In Virginia, 300,000 bushels were taken in 2022-2023 but an additional 400,000 bushels were harvested from aquaculture operations. Maryland has failed to develop its aquaculture industry as well with only 94,286 bushels harvested in aquaculture.

The Maryland landings from public bars come only after great subsidies over many years where federal and state monies are used to plant shells and spat (baby oysters) on shells. In 2023, nearly $3 million in state funds were spent on this work providing more oysters for harvesters in what is seen as a put-and-take industry.

Most of the public harvest is done by destructive power dredging that flattens oyster reefs and can destroy smaller oysters and other marine life while stirring up sediment. This practice was long banned except for skipjacks until bans were lifted over the last 20 years at the behest of harvesters.

But there’s good news! We can reestablish a flourishing oyster population in the Chesapeake Bay. But we need a double play — phasing out the wild harvest from public oyster reefs while switching harvesters to aquaculture and increasing the successful establishment of new oyster sanctuaries. The science is established that we can succeed if we have the will. As mechanical harvesting techniques advanced globally, the same collapsed fate befell other oyster populations. But other areas adjusted and switched to aquaculture, farming oysters with remarkable success. More than 95% of oysters harvested globally now come from aquaculture. This switch has been proposed in Maryland for 140 years but resistance by public grounds harvesters and packing houses continues to this day.

W.K. Brooks, the Johns Hopkins scientist known as “The Oyster Czar,” led Maryland’s first and most famous oyster commission appointed by the legislature in 1882. This commission reported in 1884 that most of the industry’s problems stemmed from overfishing of the natural bars. Brooks led the charge promoting oyster farming, now called aquaculture. “These investigations have placed it within our power to multiply the oyster to an indefinite amount,” the commission found.

Oystermen and the oyster industry pounced on such a suggestion and the commission’s proposal was disregarded. The same opponents have succeeded for 140 years in blocking the full-scale switch to aquaculture. They continue to prod state and federal government to spend millions of dollars to plant shell and seed oysters for harvest.

Oyster packing houses and some retailers have joined watermen and property owners in blocking aquaculture leases by filing appeals for permits that can stop new ventures for years. They also have pushed legislation to transfer Bay bottom sites mapped for aquaculture to allow commercial harvest. The Maryland Department of Natural Resources lacks the aquaculture staff to promote and process necessary permits to step up aquaculture projects, hindering expansion.

There is no physical or biological barrier to greatly multiplying Maryland’s 2023 aquaculture harvest to millions of bushels a year; the barriers are political and cultural. It is a century past the time to overcome these barriers and “multiply the oyster to an indefinite amount.” But there are only 374 submerged bottom leases and 104 water column leases covering 7,572 acres with harvest in bushels stuck at 90,000 to 94,000 over the last three years. Commercial watermen hold 42% of all leases, with the second greatest leaseholder a full-time waterman.

By comparison, there were more than 170,000 acres of public shellfish beds and 661 watermen harvesting public oyster bars last season. But only 204 took more than 500 bushels. At an average dockside value of $36 a bushel, that’s $18,000 gross each (before expenses) and only 29 took more than 1,000 bushels. Because of overfishing, harvesters are now limited to 1,500 bushels a season.

In a 2011 peer-reviewed paper, Maryland scientists concluded that if public oyster harvest had ceased in 1986, adult abundance would have been 15.8 times greater by 2009. Instead, the population collapsed by 92%. The authors noted that “the collapse of Eastern oysters in Maryland waters … is among the largest documented declines of a previously widespread marine species.” They called for a moratorium on wild harvest.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation called for a moratorium in 1990 even before the more severe decline. In 2010, CBF called for phasing out the wild harvest and moving to aquaculture. I developed legislation to phase out wild harvest over five years and pay oyster harvesters based on previous landings who must use the funds to switch to aquaculture. The state would augment federal disaster insurance for aquaculture oysters to cover other losses of aquaculture oysters and expedite permitting.

CBF now has abandoned calls for such a scientifically warranted transition they once supported. Instead, CBF harvests millions of taxpayer dollars to plant oysters and shell. Without their and other conservationists’ support, the proposed legislation has never been introduced.

The second part of the double-header to restore oysters is well underway and succeeding. The establishment and nurturing of oyster sanctuaries placed off-limits to harvest. This costly but effective system can help restore the Bay’s oyster populations. More on this initiative in next week’s column.

Gerald Winegrad represented the greater Annapolis area as a Democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates and Senate for 16 years. Contact him at gwwabc@comcast.net.