<figure id="attachment_11398" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-11398" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://www.the-chesapeake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Pop-Duffy-at-Duffys-Tavern-in-Scotland-Md.-on-the-Chesapeake-Bay-shucking-oysters.-.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-11398" src="http://www.the-chesapeake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Pop-Duffy-at-Duffys-Tavern-in-Scotland-Md.-on-the-Chesapeake-Bay-shucking-oysters.--1024x863.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="863" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-11398" class="wp-caption-text"><span style="color: #0000ff;"><strong>Pop Duffy at Duffy&#8217;s Tavern in Scotland Md. on the Chesapeake Bay shucking oysters.</strong></span></figcaption></figure>
<h2>The Murky Minds of MDE Regulators Confuse Everyone</h2>
<div></div>
<div><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong> By Richard Pelz<br />
SPECIAL FOR THE CHESAPEAKE</strong></span></div>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><strong>Things that make you go HUH????</strong></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Environmentalists have been talking about it for decades, politicians almost as long.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Chesapeake Bay needs more oysters.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Jay Heberle of Calvert county got it. He understands. He took it all in. Then he decided to do something about it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">As a waterfront property owner and a good steward of the Bay, he decided to grow oysters.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But a boat from the Maryland Department of the Environment came by and they saw it.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Finding this to be very important they came over to investigate. They returned and gave him a citation for growing oysters. Not the good kind of citation either. They cited him for growing too many oysters and gave him 60 days to correct the situation. So.. To bring the site into compliance he has to reduce the number of oysters. Huh?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">I used to grow oysters at my mother in laws dock when she lived in St. Clement&#8217;s Shores.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The Maryland Department reclassified my area from open to restricted and I could no longer harvest directly from the area. The sampling station they used was on the other side of St. Clements Bay near the mouth of a polluted creek. Well over a mile away.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Several years later Jon Farrington applied for an aquaculture permit to raise oysters commercially in Calvert County. In order to do this, the Maryland Department of the Environment requires the water to be classified for shellfish production.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">They need 30 samples over a 3 year period before they think they have enough data to classify the water. So in order to accomplish this, they set up a monitoring station near the end of his dock. A year and a half later they changed the person who was doing the monitoring.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">No two people do things the exact same way so the new monitoring person started testing the water 25 feet from where it had been done previously.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The head of the Shellfish waters section found out and disqualified all of the previous data and required the monitoring to start over. This is the same person that made the decision for St. Clements Bay. 25 feet is too far but over a mile is close enough? Huh?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But the tale of Thomas Taylor is even more interesting.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Thomas is an outstanding citizen and just a great guy to know. He is also a fellow Viet Nam Vet and African American.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">He has wanted to get into aquaculture for years.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Thomas has a vacation house on the Eastern Shore where he thought it would be great to grow oysters like we do at my operation on St. Jerome Creek. So following the state guidelines at the time he first filed for an aquaculture permit with the Department of Natural Resources. After a couple of months of not hearing anything, he called to ask what was going on. He was told that his permit application had not been accepted because he did not have a facility to inspect. He did not have a dock. To me, most docks look pretty much the same.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">But what do I know?</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">In order to get his application accepted he had to build a dock. Docks are expensive! Well, Thomas is a persistent fellow went ahead and got a dock built. He then called and told DNR that there was now a dock they could come and inspect. He was told he would have to re-apply.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So Thomas went ahead and re-applied. He sent in the required paperwork, again.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Upon receiving the application, one of the first things DNR did was send the aquaculture permit application around to bunches of different State, Federal and Local officials. One of these officials was … you are jumping to conclusions now!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Yes, you are Right it was the Department of the Environment and the director of the shellfish waters section.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">She dispatched one of her teams to go take a water sample at Thomas’s dock. They got the sample and off it went to the lab.</span></p>
<figure id="attachment_10829" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10829" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://www.the-chesapeake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Oyster-stew-at-Chincoteaque-Island.jpg"><img class="wp-image-10829 size-large" src="http://www.the-chesapeake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Oyster-stew-at-Chincoteaque-Island-1024x576.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="576" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10829" class="wp-caption-text"><span style="color: #0000ff;">Oyster stew at Chincoteaque Island. THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo</span></figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The lab reported high fecal coliform numbers and if you read my last piece on Iced Tea you know what that means.</span></p>
<figure id="attachment_10830" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-10830" style="width: 1024px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><a href="http://www.the-chesapeake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DSCF6366.jpg"><img class="size-large wp-image-10830" src="http://www.the-chesapeake.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/DSCF6366-1024x768.jpg" alt="" width="1024" height="768" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-10830" class="wp-caption-text"><span style="color: #0000ff;"><strong>This oyster float operation is located on the Virginia Eastern Shore. THE CHESAPEAKE TODAY photo</strong></span></figcaption></figure>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The numbers were so high the area was immediately declared prohibited waters.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Absolutely no oysters may be grown there! Maryland Department of the Environment then made up a map showing the prohibited area and sent it out to all kinds of people on their special mailing list.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">What they had done when they made the map was to put the point of a compass in the exact middle of Thomas’ Dock and draw a circle.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">That Circle was 100 meters in diameter. That is just a little over 300 feet.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Thomas’ dock is 200 feet long.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">So you get the picture.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">A dock with a big black circle around it. Everything outside of the circle remained completely open to harvest. While everything inside the circle was now prohibited. We raised Cain together and finally got granted a meeting.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">During the meeting, I suggested that Thomas is allowed to raise seed oysters in tanks on the dock and we would run the intake line outside of the circle.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">The number 2 in command of the Shellfish waters section exclaimed. We will just make the circle bigger!</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt;">and the Bay needs more oysters&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;&#8230;. Huh?</span></p>
<p> ;</p>

The Murky Minds of MDE Regulators Confuse Everyone
Oysters cage grown by Deltaville Oyster Co on the Rappahanock River