User:User800744204/Oyster farming

Environmental impact and regulations

While oysters themselves can be very beneficial to their environment, the farming of oysters and other shellfish is not necessarily restorative environmentally. However, it does hold promise for relieving pressure on land-based protein sources. Production of land-based protein sources can be detrimental to the earth environment as they generate a significant amount of greenhouse gases. Oysters, however, produce little to no greenhouse gases, and the difference in emissions between wild oysters and farmed oysters is negligible. The oysters themselves do not produce any methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gas, and just a very minimal amount of nitrous oxide and carbon dioxide.Restoration of oyster populations is encouraged for the ecosystem services they provide, including water quality maintenance, shoreline protection and sediment stabilization, nutrient cycling and sequestration, and habitat for other organisms.

There has been a decline in oyster population due to extensive factors such as climate change and overharvesting of wild populations. Because of this, Oyster reef restoration has been huge in the past decades, and a native Olympia oyster restoration project has taken place in Liberty Bay, Washington. This project uses a "Habitat Sustainability Index (HSI)" to asses the ecological impacts of the restoration. The HSI also measures the benefit to the oyster population as well. Oyster farming in the Chesapeake Bay has minimal or even positive impacts on the surrounding environment, and numerous oyster restoration projects are underway in the Chesapeake Bay. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation started working in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institute in 2022 to revive the oyster population that was disrupted due to the poor health of the water quality. In the U.S., Delaware is the only East Coast state without oyster aquaculture, but making aquaculture a state-controlled industry of leasing water by the acre for commercial harvesting of shellfish is being considered. Recreational oyster harvesting is strictly prohibited to protect both the threatened oysters and to protect people from potential disease. Bycatch reduction devices are required and violation results in a small fine. Supporters of Delaware's legislation to allow aquaculture cite: revenue, job creation, and nutrient cycling as the benefits. For example, It is estimated that one acre can produce nearly 750,000 oysters, which could filter between 15 and 40 million gallons of water daily.This is extremely beneficial to the marine ecosystem because the oysters feed on particulate matter and nitrogen, often from anthropogenic sources. This, in turn, reduces the algae growth and leads to an overall cleaner marine environment.

Other sources state that a single oyster can filter 24–96 liters a day (1–4 liters per hour). With 750,000 oysters in one acre, 18,000,000-72,000,000 liters of water can be filtered, removing most forms of particulate matter suspended in the water column. The particulate matter oysters remove are sand, clay, silt, detritus, and phytoplankton. These particulates all could possibly contain harmful contamination that originates from anthropogenic sources (the land or directly flowing into the body of water). Instead of becoming ingested by other filter feeders that are then digested by bigger organisms, oysters can sequester these possibly harmful pollutants, and excrete them into the sediment at the bottom of waterways. To remove these contaminants from the sediment, species of seaweed can also be added to the aquaculture to take up some of these contaminants in their plant tissues. The seaweed can then be removed and taken to a contained area where the contamination is benign to the surrounding environment. More recently, large-scale cultivation of oysters and other shellfish has been proposed as a method to combat climate change, because the growth of the oyster shell sequesters atmospheric carbon dioxide in a form (calcium carbonate) that is stable over geologic time. In The United States, the cultivation of Pacific oysters in tidal areas not only improves water quality in the ocean but oyster cultivation also works to improve government policy.

Oyster farming must obey federal regulations, maps, and models. Federal regulation monitors the safety of the environment and the health effects on humans. For example, Carlsbad Aquafarm located in Southern California is cultivating Pacific oysters by using rafts and trays to utilize space to optimize production while operating near the newly opened Claude Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant. New adopted environmental impact regulations and policies were created and updated by The United States Environmental Protection Agency, which approved the location and construction of the Claude Lewis Carlsbad Desalination Plant through the federal Clean Water Act on April 7, 2016, whose main focus was minimizing environmental impact in conjunction with Carlsbad Aquafarm. Applications and permits for aquaculture projects such as the Avalon Ocean Farm are made public and required to follow the same guidelines of the EPA and the CWA. Water Quality, Marine Mammals (including endangered species), and forecasted environmental impact evaluations are listed in the project's description to minimize, manage, and mitigate its environmental impact.