Nonprofit Spotlight: Foundations Team to Enhance Chesapeake Bay Oyster Restoration

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Prudence H. and Louis F. Ryan Mobile Oyster Restoration Facility, at its home base at the Brock Environmental Center in Virginia Beach, on the banks of the Lynnhaven River. (March 26, 2020)

Like many drivers, Jackie Shannon knows the frustration of being stuck in traffic at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. Her precious cargo, though, may be a bit unusual: baby oysters.

Shannon is the Virginia oyster restoration manager for Chesapeake Bay Foundation. She was spending a lot of time on the road hauling baby oysters from a work site in Gloucester to rivers in Norfolk or Virginia Beach targeted for oyster restoration. A new floating oyster restoration facility made by hooking together two barges will streamline the process and lead to more oysters and cleaner rivers that flow to the Chesapeake Bay.

The Hampton Roads Community Foundation gave CBF a grant to help fund the design and construction of the floating work center. I was privileged to be asked to write a story about the oyster barges for the Hampton Roads Community Foundation’s recently published annual report. You can read more about the project on the Foundation’s website.