“The oyster shells are coming!  The oyster shells are coming!” the buzzards call out to one another at the City’s Resource Recovery Center.

The big black birds are waiting for a feast “only a buzzard could love,” said Brent James, LRN’s Oyster Restoration Coordinator.

It’s a major event along the buzzard grape vine when Tom White drives up to the recovery center in LRNow’s shiny new truck loaded down with discarded oyster shells.

“They watch for our trucks arriving with “fresh”, meaning yucky, shells,” Brent said. “As soon as we add them to the mountains of shell, they pounce on them.”

Tom, LRNow’s Save Oyster Shell Program coordinator, makes rounds every week collecting discarded oyster shells from our participating SOS restaurants, from collection points where individuals can drop off their shells and from oyster roasts around town.

The shells cure for six months or so until they are clean before they are used to build new reefs on the Lynnhaven River. The shells must be free of not only bits and pieces of oyster muscle still connected to the shells, but also of the likes of cocktail sauce or, say, cheese and spinach from oysters Rockefeller, Brent explained.

In addition the oysters may not have  come from the Lynnhaven River originally. They might have come from the Rappahannock or James Rivers, from the Eastern Shore or even the Gulf Coast. Curing them makes sure no contamination is introduced from those waters into the Lynnhaven.

In this case curing means restoring the shells to their pristine state, though oyster meat itself can be preserved by curing, say like a ham. And of course, people can be cured of diseases and other ailments.

The buzzards only do the preliminary work, a little like the person who rinses off the dishes before their go in the washer. Flies also swarm on the shells where they lay their eggs, Brent, said. Then fly maggots do the work of the dishwasher, dining on the last bits and pieces. Rain and  sun are the final rinse and dry cycles.

In the end the oyster shells are pristine, ready for LRNow to build reefs in the Lynnhaven where more oysters will grow.

And the cycle begins again.

Join our dedicated SOS restaurants that regularly save shells and become a part of rebuilding Lynnhaven River reefs.

Contact us at office@lrnow.org or call (757) 962-5398 to schedule a pick-up and find drop off locations here.