Cultivated Oyster Mariculture Moves Forward Along the Texas Coast

The Texas Cultivated Oyster Mariculture (TX COM) industry took another step forward on June 21, 2023. Blackjack Point Oyster Company, LLC joined Texas Oyster Ranch (Copano Unos); Texas Sustainable Oysters, LLC (Barrier Beauties); and DJ's Oyster Co, LLC (Matagorda Pearls) to become the fourth cultivated oyster mariculture farm in Texas with oysters in the water.

As family, friends, local community leaders, and other interested parties gathered around, Blackjack Point Oyster Company placed approximately 275,000 baby oysters into bags and transported them to their new home in cages, located off Blackjack Peninsula in Aransas Bay. The next step for Blackjack Point Oyster Company, LLC is to secure their certification from the Texas Health Department, and then begin processing their oysters and selling them to local restaurants and those across the state in early 2024.

Cultivated oyster mariculture is not a new thing in the United States. Farms have existed for years in the Pacific Northwest, the Northeast, and other Gulf states. In 2019, The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 1300 which directed the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission to develop rules that would allow the commercial production of oysters within Texas coastal waters. With the passing of this bill, Texas became one of the last Gulf states to have permitted cultivated oyster mariculture farms. Currently there are five fully permitted TX COM farms, four with oysters in the water, three approved for harvesting and production, and seven more in the conditional permitting stage along the Texas coast.

The permitting process is a rigorous two stage process that includes the initial provisional permit secured from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD). The first part of the TPWD provisional permitting process includes identifying a potential site, conducting a natural resources survey once the site has been selected, and completing the application, which includes questions about an Operations Plan, gear, maps and more. A public meeting is also held by TPWD that allows the public to ask any questions and voice concerns about the proposed farm site. Once the TPWD provisional permit is secured, applicants must then secure approval and permits from US Army Corp of Engineers (USACE), Texas Department of State Health Services (TDSHS), US Coast Guard, and Texas General Land Office. This process can be drawn out for a lengthy period, but the TX COM staff at TPWD works well with applicants to get through the first phase of the permitting process and helping along the way with the other agencies to get them completed.

While it is still somewhat of a learning process, all parties are working hard with one another to make the process more efficient for present and future applicants. The TX COM staff at TPWD is to be commended for their efforts in helping applicants navigate the path to permits.

Cultivated oyster mariculture has many positive impacts to the oyster fishery and ecosystems the farms are located within. The oysters are raised in off-bottom cages in areas that have no existing oyster reefs or seagrass beds. These farm-raised oysters still provided the same filtering capabilities as natural reefs, resulting in cleaner and clearer bays wherever they are placed.

In the short infancy of the program in Texas, there are already stories of fish using the farms as habitat. Tripletail have been spotted within weeks on the new pilings marking the parameter of farms, and speckled trout and redfish catches have been reported along the edges of the farms.

Cultivated oyster mariculture is one of seven tenants in CCA Texas’s solutions to a healthy and sustainable oyster fishery. The tenants include:

• Promote and increase participation in the license buyback program.
• Expand the state bay-bottom lease program (certificate of location) for commercial oystermen.
• Create opportunities for non-harvestable bay-bottom conservation leases.
• Promote increased participation in cultivated oyster mariculture (oyster farming)
• Designate sanctuary reefs in bay systems to serve as spawning reserves for public reefs.
• Refine metrics for opening and closing shellfish harvest areas.
• Develop and execute strategic restoration plans.

CCA Texas has and continues to be an active leader in developing solutions for a healthy and sustainable oyster fishery. Many changes have been made in the last several Texas Legislative sessions, and CCA Texas is committed to help make changes that are lasting and effective. For more information about the Texas Oyster Fishery, be sure to visit https://ccatexas.org/oysters/.