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Commissioners agree to coordinate removal of county shell pile for oyster restoration with watermen
Summary
Delmarva Fisheries and Kent County watermen asked the board to help move a long‑stored shell pile at the county landfill for planting in local bars; commissioners authorized the president to coordinate with public works to remove and use the material in restoration efforts.
The board voted to allow county staff to coordinate with Delmarva Fisheries and local watermen to remove a pile of oyster shell at county property for planting in the bay.
Captain Rob Newberry, chairman of Delmarva Fisheries, told commissioners the shell was county property and that state and local partners had used similar material for restoration plantings in the past. "We came, several years ago. We were aware of a large amount of shell that was sitting in the dump in Rock Hall ... it belongs to the county," Newberry said.
Dan Duiker, introduced on the record as vice president of the Kent County Waterman, described a practical plan: county excavators and trucks would load shell onto a seed boat and watermen would carry and plant it on local oyster bars. The group estimated the pile originally began as roughly 20,000 bushels though the recoverable amount would be less.
Commissioners instructed staff to coordinate timing with public works and partner counties. A motion to allow the board president to coordinate with Public Works Director Dan Mattson to remove the shell pile at the Sharptown landfill and make it available for bay planting carried with aye votes.
Why it matters: moving and planting shell helps restoration and can reuse county material that has been stored for decades; the action pairs county equipment and labor with waterman boats and state shell‑planting practices.
Provenance: the request and discussion are in the transcript between Rob Newberry’s remarks (s≈2832) and the recorded motion and vote (s≈3429–3436).
