Residents help restore oyster beds wrecked by Ike

SAN LEON — Pat Henderson has spent her life within swimming distance of a large oyster reef in Galveston Bay, but said she never realized how important the reefs were until she took a job baby-sitting them.

After Hurricane Ike destroyed much of the oyster reef habitat in Galveston Bay last year, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department launched a project to restore the smothered reefs. Part of the project called for restoring at least 2 acres of habitat in San Leon near Eagle Point.

The department recruited six families that live along Eagle Point, including Pat and Joe Henderson, to help grow oysters by hanging mesh bags filled with shucked oyster shells from their piers in an effort to attract oyster larvae called “spat.”

On Monday, officials from the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service emptied the bags, spreading the larvae across an artificial reef the state officials constructed from river rock and crushed concrete.

Pat Henderson, who has spent the past four months growing baby oysters in bags dangling from her pier, said the experience had been eye-opening. She was surprised to discover that when she hauled up the mesh bags to count the oyster larvae, the bags teemed with other wildlife. Tiny mud crabs the size of a pinkie fingernail scuttled from the bag. Baby shrimp, thin sea worms, small flounder and miniature barnacles all found homes in the cluster of shucked oyster shells.

“It was very exciting,” Henderson said. “There’s no question that this will help the bay.”

Waterfront homeowners got a crash course in oyster ecology, Bill Rodney, a state marine biologist, said.

“They never knew an oyster reef supported such a diverse community of animals,” he said. “(The reefs) are really like the coral reefs of Galveston Bay.”

Oyster reefs attract larger game fish by providing habitats for bottom-dwelling fish and invertebrates. The oysters filter silt and contaminants from the water. A single oyster filters 50 gallons of water per day, Rodney said.

“Every time we put just one in the bay, it’s doing that much filtration,” Joe Henderson said.

The area around Eagle Point is closed to commercial oyster fishing because of high levels of bacteria.

Oysters were once abundant in Galveston Bay, but the population dwindled during the heavy mining of oyster shell in the 1960s. Before Hurricane Ike struck Galveston on Sept. 13, 2008, there were 15,915 acres of oyster reef in Galveston Bay, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department estimates. The hurricane’s storm surge smothered reefs with sand and debris, leaving 8,000 acres of reef.

With help from the state’s parks department, the waterfront residents in late June hung from their rebuilt piers plastic mesh bags filled with shucked oyster shells donated from the Galveston Bay Foundation’s shell recycling program. The shells emit a signal, called a “chemical cue,” that attracts oyster larvae to attach to the shells. The larvae, which look like shadowy pink spots on the shells, will grow to full size. Generations of oysters eventually will create a new reef on top of the substrate of rock and concrete dumped by the state.

Henderson said oyster gardening brought neighbors together. It also gave them a welcome distraction from the stresses of rebuilding their lives after Hurricane Ike destroyed their waterfront homes.

Sylvia Quintana, who helped grow oysters from the pier of her mother’s rebuilt second home on Avenue A½, said she’s now hooked on oyster gardening.

“I know it will take years to recover, but this is a beginning,” she said. “We’ve got to help.”