NOAA 2016 Oyster Restoration Updates

NOAA Press Release -The 2014 Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, which guides the work of the Chesapeake Bay Program, calls for state and federal partners to “restore native oyster habitat and populations in 10 Bay tributaries by 2025, and ensure their protection.”

To coordinate planning efforts to achieve this outcome, in Virginia, the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Sustainable Fisheries Goal Implementation Team convened three oyster restoration workgroups—one each for the Lafayette, Piankatank, and Lynnhaven rivers. These workgroups plan and coordinate large-scale oyster restoration in each tributary. Each is working to develop an oyster restoration plan to describe how the tributaries will be restored and monitored, consistent with standards described in the

Chesapeake Bay Oyster Metrics report. On behalf of each workgroup, NOAA maintains GIS geodatabases with relevant data on each tributary, available here.

In addition to the Lafayette, Piankatank, and Lynnhaven rivers, two other tributaries (Great Wicomico and lower York rivers) have been preliminarily selected for largescale restoration in Virginia. An overview of Bay-wide progress toward the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement oyster outcome is available at here. An overview of Maryland progress toward the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement oyster outcome is available here.

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Wayne Creed

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