DATE: Thursday, July 17, 1997               TAG: 9707170513

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B5   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY SCOTT HARPER, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   75 lines

STATE HOPES PROJECT RESTORES LYNNHAVEN OYSTERS

Three hundred years ago, Indians would climb onto huge rocky reefs protruding from rivers along the Chesapeake Bay and gather as many big, meaty oysters as they could carry.

Jim Wesson, state director of oyster conservation and replenishment, held up an ink drawing Wednesday of such an idyllic scene and pointed to the shallows of the Lynnhaven River behind him.

``That's basically what we're trying to re-create here,'' Wesson told a gathering of students, volunteers and media representatives who had come to the river to see the beginnings of a marine project that scientists hope will revive stocks of the once-famous Lynnhaven oyster.

Like other waterways that feed the Bay, the Lynnhaven has been struck by a torrent of parasites and wastes in recent decades that has decimated oyster stocks. Lynnhaven oysters once were requested by name by British royalty; now there are hardly any left.

One major problem is that those mountainous reefs common three centuries ago have been reduced by age and erosion to flat rubble. Oyster habitat is disappearing.

On Wednesday, crews hired with state and federal money were busy trying to reverse this withering trend.

They were unloading a barge carrying 80,000 bushels of empty oyster shells, most imported from the Gulf of Mexico, and setting them in round stacks on the muddy bottom of the Eastern Branch of the Lynnhaven River.

Together, these mounds will comprise an artificial oyster reef, to be 600 feet long and 60 feet wide. Here, about one mile south of the Lesner Bridge, scientists intend to plant baby oysters, raised in private cages by local students and community groups, in hopes of engineering a new population of oysters.

Work began on the $400,000 project Monday. The reef, which Wesson described as looking like an upside-down egg carton, is expected to be in place early next week. Planting will occur next spring.

``We're just trying to give what we know is ideal habitat a chance,'' Wesson said. ``Everything seems to be exactly where we want it to be.''

This is the 13th artificial reef constructed by Wesson and the Virginia Marine Resources Commission, and the fourth built through the state agency this year.

Under an agreement with Maryland and the federal government, Virginia embarked on its artificial reef program in 1993, when state leaders recognized that they had to do something new to try to overcome the devastating impact of two parasites.

Known as MSX and Dermo, the parasites literally starve oysters to death and are blamed principally for the dramatic decline in oysters throughout the Bay. In the 1970s, for example, commercial landings totaled about 2 million bushels a year; last year, Virginia watermen brought 20,000 bushels to market.

The Lynnhaven project is different from other artificial reefs on several fronts. For one, the river has a famous, and infamous, history - of plate-sized oysters demanding top dollar at chic New York and San Francisco restaurants, and of a once proud and rich oyster community fading to near nothingness in recent years.

For another, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation has adopted the Lynnhaven project, using its grass-roots connections to stir regional interest in ``saving the oyster.''

Some 28 middle and high schools in Hampton Roads will be raising baby oysters for the Lynnhaven reef with the help of the foundation. Civic groups and individuals also are participating by growing oysters in floating cages known as ``oyster gardens.''

``We're excited about this project and hope to get the community behind it,'' said Laurissa Heller, the foundation's student coordinator in Hampton Roads. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

NHAT MEYER/The Virginian-Pilot

From left, volunteers Carolyn Watson, Amy Zimmering and Karen Hester

approach a barge full of empty oyster shells on the Lynnhaven River

in Virginia Beach. The shells will be used to create an artificial

reef, which is part of an effort to restore the Lynnhaven oyster

population.

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