The state's new oyster recovery and aquaculture program — applauded by the conservation community and panned by watermen — began this morning, when the first application was hand delivered to the Department of Natural Resources at 7:15.
By 9 a.m., five people had paid a fee of $150 to $300 for the chance to lease a portion of the Chesapeake Bay bottom for aquaculture, said Tom O'Connell, DNR Fisheries Service director.
"That was exciting to see and we hope to see a few more this week," O'Connell said. "This has been six or seven years in the making and really intense work for the last year."
Announced last year by Gov. Martin O'Malley, the oyster project sets aside tens of thousands of acres of bay-bottom for aquaculture leasing, called enterprise zones, and expands sanctuaries from nine percent to about 25 percent of the remaining viable bay bottom to allow oysters to grow to full reproductive size.
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