On a beautiful sunny day, as the waves of Galveston Bay roll gently against the backdrop of a blue sky, it’s hard to imagine the devastation Hurricane Ike brought to the Texas Gulf Coast more than 15 years ago. Communities like San Leon, located on a small peninsula just north of Galveston Island, have largely rebuilt the homes and businesses ravaged by the storm’s surge flooding and wind damage.

Unfortunately, some of the region’s most important inhabitants—oysters—have yet to bounce back all these years later, and the aftereffects reverberate far beyond the water. This crisis has become a catalyst for renewed investment in repopulating local oyster reefs.

“Galveston Bay was kind of the center of the oyster fishery and oyster reefs in Texas for generations,” says Laura Picariello, the program director of sustainable fisheries and aquaculture at Texas Sea Grant. “Ike so severely damaged most of the reefs here in Texas that [it] caused a lot of disruption to the oyster industry as a whole.”

In 2008, Ike’s tidal surges inundated Galveston Bay with up to 17 feet of water, leaving behind masses of debris and sediment that smothered and decimated oyster reefs. The Galveston Bay Foundation reports that 60 percent of oyster habitat was lost as a result. Subsequent weather events have made it that much harder for the population to bounce back.

“One of the things [oysters] need to survive and thrive is a good salinity level, a nice mixture of seawater from the Gulf and fresh water from inland. This is the perfect ecosystem for them,” says Kathy Sweezey, the coastal restoration project manager for the Nature Conservancy in Texas.

Higher salinity levels—like those caused by extreme drought in recent summers—leave oysters more prone to disease and predators. But too much fresh water from heavy storms and runoff causes die-offs as well.

“It’s a constant cycle on the coast here,” Picariello says. “It’s not just, oh, it was a hurricane, and that was 10 years ago. It’s these constant pulses of drought then fresh water, drought then fresh water, then storm. It’s an ongoing challenge the coast faces.”

This loss of oysters has been devastating not only to the local fishing economy but to the entire marine ecology of Galveston Bay. Oysters provide a long list of benefits, including water filtration, shoreline protection, and habitat for more than 300 marine species.

Healthy oyster populations are crucial to the well-being of both Gulf Coast residents and the region’s diverse wildlife. Despite a difficult run over the past two decades, there is good news: more groups than ever are contributing to oyster reef restoration through a combination of public and private efforts.

Rebuilding

Because oysters are prolific producers of babies—known as spat—the answer to restoration is not more oysters but hard surfaces where oysters can attach their shells. “We like to say in Galveston that we’re not really spat-limited, but we’re very much substrate-limited,” Sweezey says.

When spat start out their lives, they are originally free-swimming, gradually pulling in calcium from the water to create protective calcium carbonate shells. Sweezey explains that spat swim through water to find a solid surface to attach to, then spend the remainder of their lives on it. The bay needs more rock, concrete, or limestone, but there’s another great hard surface oysters love to stick to: oyster shells themselves.

Oyster shell recycling is one way to bring substrate back to the water. Picariello says Texas is unique in that regard: the state manages oysters through shell recovery. State law requires that oyster dealers return 30 percent of the oyster shell they purchase to the water annually.

“You can either do that by buying limestone, or providing shell if you have a shucking house or an establishment where you’re collecting that shell back. That’s not really a common practice, and that goes a long way to helping restore some of the public reefs that fishermen have access to,” Picariello says.

Nonprofits like the Galveston Bay Foundation supplement commercial shell restoration through projects like its recycling program. Since starting the initiative in 2011, the foundation has recycled more than 1,000 tons of oyster shells to critical habitats with the help of its restaurant partners in the Houston area.

In recent years, it’s become clear that public and private partnerships—encompassing all those with a shared interest in healthy oyster reefs—are essential for positive outcomes in the face of climate change.

Restoring

Lisa Halili, co-owner of Dickinson-based distributor and processor Prestige Oysters and founder of the San Leon Oyster Festival, is introducing the state’s first private-industry oyster restoration project through the establishment of Rett Reef in San Leon.

In a unique collaboration between San Leon Oyster Fest (whose proceeds she used to purchase the reef), Pier 6 Seafood & Oyster House (a restaurant managed by Lisa’s son Raz Halili), Prestige Oysters, the Nature Conservancy in Texas, and Texas Sea Grant, the project aims to restore 10 acres of oyster habitat in Galveston Bay on a private, nonharvestable reef.

The Nature Conservancy in Texas and Texas Sea Grant facilitated Halili’s acquisition of the essential US Army Corps of Engineers permit for the reef restoration project. These organizations will conduct research at the site, oversee progress, and document outcomes, with the aim of replicating this approach in other locations. Pier 6 Seafood & Oyster House will donate its spent shells to serve as the substrate for the reef, totaling 383 tons (533 cubic yards).

“We hope to see positive oyster recruitment and growth within the first few months after restoration,” Sweezey says. “Rett Reef will continue to be monitored for at least two years post-restoration, with the goal of observing a healthy and continuously growing reef over this time span.”

Prestige Oysters unloads the donated shells at the reef site, where they are left to cure in the sun for more than six months to ensure they’re free of bacteria. After curing, they’re ready for planting on the reef. The time, space, and monetary costs of recycling oyster shells, in addition to building and maintaining a reef, are considerable. But Halili believes the risk will be worth the reward.

“One way to clean out your bay system is to have healthier, larger, better reefs,” she says. “A lot of people are like, ‘You’re an oyster business, and you’re restoring a nonharvestable reef?’ I want to try to get a message out there. I want people to know that we can make a better tomorrow.”

Halili believes in the need for government agencies, nonprofits, research organizations, and private businesses to share their knowledge and resources. “We can do this together. There’s ways to compromise. There’s solutions. And so I’m hoping that Rett Reef will be one of those examples,” she says.

Picariello notes that the challenge of finding common ground comes from navigating the different perspectives of all interested parties.

“Oysters are so unique in that they play so many important roles, not just providing food. They’re habitat, they’re shoreline protection, they’re water quality,” she says. “How can we all come to the table from our different perspectives and learn how to manage oyster reefs for all of those things? Because they’re all important.”