Chesapeake Home Oyster Program Targets A Healthier Stoney Creek

By Kevin Murnane

Pasadena residents Caryn Canfield and Chris Wallis met while sailing on Rock Creek. They have since teamed up to help improve the water quality in the area based on their common interest of maintaining the beauty and serenity of local creeks.

For the last several years, Canfield and Wallis have spent time working with Anne Arundel County to help with various projects that are geared toward improving the quality of water in Rock Creek, along with the surrounding streams that lead into it.

Their latest project is the Chesapeake Home Oyster Program (CHOP), a free initiative that gives residents with waterfront property baby oysters – spat – which are placed into the water to improve oxygen levels. Once homeowners receive the spat they are asked to make sure the cages stay clean so the oysters can continue to filter the water.

Wallis, who grew up on the water in Baltimore County before moving to Pasadena, remembers a time when the creeks and rivers in Anne Arundel County were clean and the grasses were plentiful.

“I became involved with trying to clean up the bay and its creeks and streams because ever since I began sailing 35 years ago, I noticed the changes taking place in the water,” said Wallis, adding, “There are numerous reasons why the creeks and rivers lost their clarity, but the main reason is runoff of sediments. These sediments come from new home construction and so much of the land being covered by asphalt.”

Canfield is a certified Anne Arundel County Watershed Steward and is an advocate for water quality. She has created a website and has done presentations in the area to enlist the help of homeowners in the CHOP program. Canfield also organizes spring and fall clean-ups of the streambeds along Rock Creek.

“We want to educate the residents on how vital it is to restore our creeks, and one of the first steps is getting more oxygen into the water. The oyster program will make a huge difference if we can get enough homeowners who have waterfront property to participate,” continued Canfield.

Wallis further explained, “Because so many pollutants have gone into the creeks over the years, it has made the water so dirty the sun cannot penetrate to the bottom where the grasses grow. This has led to the decline of the grasses, which are vital to the oxygen level of the water.”

Local resident Mario Rizzi, who is helping to start the CHOP program in the Stoney Creek area, reinforces the importance of the oyster program. “Every oyster placed in the water will filter 50 gallons of water a day, so every oyster counts.”

Wallis says there are 350 residents who have homes on Rock Creek and his group has so far contacted about 60 of them. If any waterfront property owner with a dock is interested, they can go to the website Canfield and Wallis have created, www.restorerockcreek.org or they can email Canfield at caryncan@restorerockcreek.org.

Residents who have waterfront property on Stoney Creek can go to Ricci’s website, www.choponthebay.com, for more information.