Texas Border Business
- WHAT: Texas Oyster Mariculture Stakeholder Meeting
- WHEN: 10 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 25, 2020
- WHERE: UTRGV Coastal Studies Lab, 100 Marine Lab Drive, South Padre Island, Texas (located inside Isla Blanca Park)
- MAP: https://www.utrgv.edu/umc/_files/images/news/construction/maps/port-isabel-mobile-units-map.pdf
By Victoria Brito Morales
SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, TEXAS – Dr. Joanne Rampersad-Ammons, a professor in UTRGV Department of Chemistry and the School of Earth, Environmental and Marine Sciences, is cohosting a Texas Oyster Mariculture Stakeholder meeting on Saturday to discuss the possible impact of the passage of Texas House Bill 1300 and legislation relevant to the Lower Laguna Madre.
The meeting will be at 10 a.m. Jan. 25 at the UTRGV Coastal Studies Lab at South Padre Island and is cohosted with Tony Reisinger, Cameron County extension agent for the Sea Grant Texas at Texas A&M.
All community stakeholders, including property owners in the surrounding areas, are invited to share their comments about new developments and the effect on activities in the Lower Laguna Madre.
Rampersad-Ammons said Eastern oysters are a commercially important food source and a significant source of revenue as a food delicacy, but commercial natural populations have been declining at an alarming rate.
“Some believe that the future of commercial oyster harvest is culture, and Texas has just enacted legislation in HB1300 that paves the way for oyster off-bottom culture, called oyster mariculture,” she said.
“Although the future is bright for oyster mariculture locally in the Lower Laguna Madre, it must be done sustainably, minimizing impact to our unique ecosystem and co-existing with other livelihoods that depend on that ecosystem.”
