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Day two of David Pecker testimony wraps in NY Trump trial; Supreme Court hears arguments on Idaho's near-total abortion ban; ND sees a flurry of campaigning among Native candidates; and NH lags behind other states in restricting firearms at polling sites.

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The Senate moves forward with a foreign aid package. A North Carolina judge overturns an aged law penalizing released felons. And child protection groups call a Texas immigration policy traumatic for kids.

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Wyoming needs more educators who can teach kids trade skills, a proposal to open 40-thousand acres of an Ohio forest to fracking has environmental advocates alarmed and rural communities lure bicyclists with state-of-the-art bike trail systems.

Disease-Resistant Oyster Could Aid Chesapeake Bay

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Monday, February 22, 2016   

RICHMOND, Va. - Marine police are cracking down on illegal oyster harvesting in Chesapeake Bay, but catching someone in action isn't easy.

It's just one effort to help restore the oyster population, which is only 1 percent of historical levels. Operations to restore reefs and plant seed oysters are under way, and there's also an effort to develop a new, disease-resistant oyster.

Jana Davis, director of the Chesapeake Bay Trust, says that research holds a lot of promise. She says the work is a joint project of local, state and federal agencies, as well as other organizations and nonprofits.

"We'd love to see the oyster come back to a level that we could really fish it and use it and eat it and it's our culture, it's our history, so we want to get there," says Davis. "The question is how can we get there, and how can we work together?"

Davis says every group and agency has the same goal of restoring native oysters in the Bay. With so many agencies involved, however, she says a lot of negotiating has to be done.

"There's lots of competing interests so, if you put an oyster reef on the bottom of a tributary, someone else might have been intending to use that, or had eyes for it, in some other way," says Davis. "If you designate one area a sanctuary, those folks who want to access the resource then can't. So, there do tend to be competing interests."

Davis says restoring the oyster reefs and setting aside "no fishing" zones will be key to helping them repopulate.

Davis sees the oyster as part of the area's history, and says most people want to see the population restored.

"We're doing a good job on educating folks. It helps that the oyster is tasty and lots of people like to eat it. Oysters are popular and prominent, an important species in other estuaries across the United States, and so, this isn't an issue that's just unique to the Chesapeake Bay."

She adds oysters filter nutrients, and at one point, there were so many oysters in the Chesapeake Bay that they filtered all the water every three days.

Now, the shortage due to disease and water pollution also means there are dead zones in the bay where nothing thrives.


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