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Scientists Recycle Oyster Shells to Aid Chesapeake Bay

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I'm Alex Villarreal with the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, from http://voaspecialenglish.com | http://facebook.com/voalearningenglishRecycling programs usually give new life to materials like paper, metal, plastic and glass. But a program in the eastern United States is recycling shellfish to help the Chesapeake Bay. Oysters are filter feeders which means they help clean the water. At the same time, generation upon generation of oysters form reefs. These structures provide homes for fish and crabs. Oysters are a Chesapeake tradition. And they are good for the bay. But environmental damage and too much harvesting have cut the oyster population of the Chesapeake. An organization called the Oyster Recovery Partnership started the recycling program earlier this year. Baby oysters need to attach themselves to a shell or other hard surface as they grow. Scientists are using recycled shells as part of an oyster reproduction program. More than fifty restaurants, seafood dealers and other businesses have joined the Oyster Shell Recycling Alliance. Two states, Maryland and Virginia, are also taking part in the program. One of the restaurants involved is in Washington, near the White House. Oysters are a specialty at the Old Ebbitt Grill, and manager Christian Guidi says that means lots of shells. He says: "We serve between fifteen hundred and three thousand oysters a day, and that obviously does create a lot of waste." But the restaurant no longer throws away all those shells. The Oyster Recovery Partnership takes them away for recycling.First the shells get washed. Then they go to the Center for Environmental Science at the University of Maryland for further processing. The shells are placed in tanks with hundreds of millions of oyster larvae. This way, the baby oysters can be raised until they have grown big enough to be moved to the Chesapeake. This year, the Oyster Recovery Partnership helped produce andplant more than four hundred fifty million baby oysters in the bay. Don Meritt heads the oyster recovery program at the University of Maryland. He says the goal is not just to increase the oyster population. He says: "Our real goal here is to try to restore healthy oysters to the Chesapeake Bay sothat we can help restore a healthy Chesapeake Bay." Mr. Meritt says it will take many years of work before the Chesapeake Bay has a good supply of oysters again. For VOA Special English I'm Alex Villarreal. You can find our programs with transcripts and MP3s at voaspecialenglish.com.

(Adapted froma radio program broadcast 30Nov2010)
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