Economic impact on the half-shell
March 2015
By Eric Johnson
Contributing Editor, UNC@Work
As mollusks go, oysters are an especially generous lot.
They clean the water. They help stabilize eroding shorelines. And they’re delicious, especially with butter.
Which is why North Carolina is working on a statewide plan to become “the Napa Valley of oysters,” as several people proclaimed during this month’s Oyster Summit in Raleigh. Business owners, local officials, and marine researchers from across the state gathered at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences to outline bivalve strategies for the coastal economy.
“It’s about the entire suite of ecosystem services,” said Dr. Andy Keeler, an economics professor at East Carolina University and head of the public policy program at the UNC Coastal Studies Institute. “We need to think broadly when we think about economic development.”
And oysters, Dr. Keeler said, have a broad impact. Because of the role they play in filtering and cleaning water, healthy oyster populations are closely linked to the overall health of coastal fisheries. Research being conducted at UNC field sites up and down the coast is helping make the connection between oyster restoration and crucial industries like tourism, fishing, and more sustainable coastal development.
“Not only are these restoration projects good for the environment, but they’re an immediate shot in the arm for these rural economies,” said Rob Lamme of the N.C. Coastal Federation. “They have long-term, quantifiable economic impact.”
The Coastal Federation has a five-year blueprint for developing new oyster sanctuaries along the North Carolina coast, with cooperation from both state agencies and private-sector partners. A network of sanctuaries will help guarantee healthy oyster stocks up and down the coastline, and help North Carolina’s fledgling oyster industry compete with Virginia and Maryland for a greater slice of the East Coast market.
If that vision comes to pass, University research will play a starring role. UNC faculty and students are already hard at work on a number of projects that have the potential to boost oyster harvests in North Carolina, including studies of ideal depths and water conditions for oyster beds, the best materials for creating new oyster reefs — from old crab pots to concrete rubble — and new ways to fend off pathogens that affect oysters.
Smarter regulation is also on the agenda. Work underway at the UNC Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Science could help loosen some of the harvesting restrictions meant to curtail oyster-born bacteria, since current FDA limits are based solely on oyster operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Those restrictions are put into place based on data from the Gulf Coast and their oysters and their particular set of bacteria,” said Dr. Brett Froelich in a recent interview with Public Radio East. “We get lumped into those restrictions here in the state of North Carolina based solely on our average water temperature and not on any data based on the bacteria that are currently in our waters.”
More precisely tailored rules could help N.C. oystermen harvest more efficiently, lowering costs for producers and consumers while still maintaining a safe product.
“We gotta raise our game,” said John Preyer, head of Raleigh-based Restoration Systems. “Other states should not be eating our lunch — they should be eating our oysters.”
Eric Johnson is a writer in Chapel Hill. He works for the University of North Carolina, and is a contributing editor to UNC@Work.