Episode 26: Cultivating the Future: North Carolina's Oyster Blueprint with Erin Fleckenstein

Shownotes:

Join us as we dive deep into the North Carolina Oyster Blueprint, a comprehensive initiative aimed at balancing oyster habitat restoration, sustainable harvesting, shell recycling, and outreach education. Erin Fleckenstein, the Oyster Program Director for the North Carolina Coastal Federation, takes us through the evolution of the blueprint from its origins, challenges, and successes. for expanding in a sustainable way the oyster industry while at the same time protecting the environment, maximizing water quality and creating greater public awareness of the importance of oysters to the public. North Carolina is a pioneer in this collaborative approach and dedicates significant effort to keep it current, relevant and responsive to the needs of all involved in oyster-related businesses. Learn about the North Carolina Oyster Trail, the pivotal role of partnerships, and the coordinated efforts to make the state's oyster industry a model of sustainable aquaculture. Discover the key elements of the oyster blueprint, including habitat creation, water quality protection, and the collaborative approach involving state agencies, nonprofits, shellfish growers, and university researchers.

00:00 Introduction to the North Carolina Oyster Blueprint

00:33 Meet Erin: The Oyster Program Director

00:53 The Role of the North Carolina Coastal Federation

02:20 The Birth and Expansion of the Oyster Trail

02:58 Understanding the Oyster Blueprint

03:44 The BRACO Report and Its Impact

04:42 Formation of the Oyster Blueprint Alliance

06:02 Progress and Updates on the Oyster Blueprint

07:06 Challenges and Successes in Coordination

09:37 Historical Context: The North Carolina Oyster Wars

10:47 Modern Oyster Farming Techniques

11:35 Support Systems for New Oyster Farmers

13:11 The Aquaculture Hub Initiative

15:04 Funding and Future Plans for the Hub

16:31 Coordination and Advocacy Efforts

19:08 Tracking Oyster Industry Progress

20:47 Future Growth and Goals for the Oyster Industry

23:16 Personal Insights: Erin's Oyster Preferences

24:24 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

Links:

North Carolina Coastal Federation (https://www.nccoast.org/)

North Carolina Oyster Trail (https://ncoystertrail.org/)

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Transcript

Cultivating the Future: North Carolina's Oyster Blueprint with Erin Fleckenstein

[00:00:00] [Bubbles]

Erin Fleckenstein: The North Carolina Oyster Blueprint is unique in bringing together partners for all different facets of oysters and trying to balance habitat with harvest and growing shell recycling and outreach and education. And so finding those, points of common interest and balancing the needs of all of those partners has, I wouldn't say has been challenging, but it is definitely an art.

[Bubbles]

Kevin: Welcome to OYSTER-ology, a podcast about oysters, aquaculture, and everything from spat to shuck. I'm your host and the Foodwalker, Kevin Cox. As the popularity in demand for oysters grows around the United States, with more farmers entering the business and more eaters looking for oysters to eat, it becomes increasingly important to develop some sort of plan for continuing development of the industry.

I believe there's a true oyster renaissance happening around the world right now, [00:01:00] similar to what has happened in prior decades and centuries, but where little forward-thinking concern for the future of oyster industries led to the decimation of vast seemingly inexhaustible oyster populations in the 19th and 20th century, today people are actually trying to learn from their mistakes and plan accordingly. And states like North Carolina are leading the charge to find ways to foster aquaculture expansion and protect other environmental concerns at the same time with what they call the Oyster Blueprint, a strategic living document that guides the oyster industry restoration and environmental protection measures in North Carolina.

Here to tell us about that is Erin Fleckenstein, the Oyster Program Director for the North Carolina Coastal Federation. Erin is in charge of overseeing and implementing North Carolina's Oyster Blueprint. She holds a Master of Science in marine biology from the University of North Carolina and a Bachelor of Sciences in marine and freshwater biology [00:02:00] from the University of New Hampshire.

Prior to her current role with the federation, Erin served as a coastal scientist leading a variety of initiatives to restore wetlands, create oyster sanctuaries, and living shorelines and build rain gardens. She sees this bivalve world more holistically than if she only worked with oysters, and she understands the big picture of oysters in relationship to competing interests of water quality, mariculture, land use, and so much more.

Erin and I discussed the history and structure of the Oyster Blueprint initiated in response to declining oyster harvests in the 1990s. She explains how the Coastal Federation, along with various partners like SEA Grant and the Shellfish Growers Association, centralized efforts to create an overarching guide for all interested agencies and industries and actual blueprint for success.

Out of this effort came among other things, the North Carolina Oyster Trail, which I spoke [00:03:00] about in a prior episode with Bill Husted, which you should definitely check out. Today, the blueprint serves as the central guideline for the growth of oysters and aquaculture in North Carolina. This cohesive approach represents logical, organized oyster industry management, and is a model for other states which are looking, learning from, and hopefully developing their own similar blueprints for success.

So stow your muddy oyster gear and put on your industry planning hat to hear about public, private, and nonprofit group involvement in the oyster world; balancing oyster habitat restoration, sustainable harvesting, shell recycling, and outreach education all at the same time; the State-of-the-Oyster Report; just what is an aquaculture hub; the birth of an oyster trail; and avoiding mistakes of the past while shepherding the oyster world into the future with my guest, Erin Fleckenstein.

[Bubbles]

Kevin: Hi, Erin.

Erin Fleckenstein: Hey, [00:04:00] Kevin.

Kevin: It's so good to meet you Erin, your your name springs to life because when I originally reached out to the North Carolina Oyster Trail, I think I reached out to you.

Erin Fleckenstein: Mm hmm. I think you did Yes,

Kevin: So, tell me a little bit about you and your role in the North Carolina Oyster Trail.

Erin Fleckenstein: So I'm the oyster program director for the North Carolina Coastal Federation, and we help to promote a number of activities related to oysters, including habitat and water quality protection measures, as well as supporting the harvesting and growing of oysters in the state.

We have a very extensive outreach arm to our organization and so it was a natural fit to incorporate the Oyster Trail, especially with the partnership from the North Carolina Shellfish Growers and North Carolina Sea Grant. So my role in particular with the, the Oyster Trail is much more of an administrative role, um, in helping to [00:05:00] manage the trail members.

Help with the sort of behind the scenes of the the trail website Helping to partner with Sea Grant on some of our social media promotions tracking our trail members that behind the scenes coordination that happens to make these kinds of things work. But I would be remiss if I didn't give credit to Jane Harrison with North Carolina Sea Grant because she really laid the groundwork. She coordinated a number of community meetings And really helped to bring the idea and gauge interest from people in participating in the oyster trail and, um, did that sort of feasibility study that needed to be done before we could incorporate it into the blueprint.

And originally we had planned to just launch the trail on the outer banks because that's where. From those meetings, we had seen the majority of the interest, but as soon as we launched it on the Outer Banks, there was a demand for [00:06:00] trail, you know, elsewhere in the state. And so it very quickly went from just being an Outer Banks effort to being a coast wide effort and that's where and statewide now.

Kevin: What's intriguing to me is that it sounds, like North Carolina has developed this blueprint that is more encompassing than just developing an oyster trail for merchants and visitors. Tell me a little bit about the oyster blueprint.

Erin Fleckenstein: So in the early ‘90s we had unprecedented low harvest of oysters and it caused a lot of concern about our oyster population in the state. There have been been efforts underway to restore oyster habitat since the early 1900s, but it kind of came to a head in the early 90s that our oyster population was in need of some assistance. So a joint legislative body came together to look at the issues that were impacting our oyster population and to better [00:07:00] understand what could be done to both restore and protect our existing population, but also to promote the shellfish aquaculture industry.

And that effort was led by our legislature and they came out with a report that they called the BRACO report. The Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Oysters report. So we just shorten it to BRACO. And that report was very comprehensive and very well done, and it recommended a number of things, including water quality protection measures, habitat creation, shell recycling, Um, as well as promoting the oyster aquaculture industry from that point, um, a number, you know, the, the various efforts of the blueprint, or I'm sorry, if the BRACO report were then housed within different agencies within the state government.

And so we had water quality initiatives that were happening. We [00:08:00] had habitat restoration initiatives and it kind of, got fractured a little bit as far as who was doing what. And so in the early two thousands, the coastal federation, the nature conservancy, Sea Grant, the Albemarle national, the Albemarle Pamlico national estuary partnership, as well as a few other partners came together and said, Hey, let's, let's bring all of the partners together and let's form.

An alliance, if you will, that will help to bring all of these efforts under some common goals and common objectives so that we're all pulling in the same direction. And so that was done in 2003 through a meeting called the Oyster Forums. And from those, those series of meetings, we developed a blueprint for action. And so we now just refer to that as the oyster blueprint, and it encompasses it's all of those things. The habitat restoration, the water quality protection measures, the oyster aquaculture, shell recycling, and our [00:09:00] outreach and education efforts are now all sort of housed under some collective goals that not just the state agencies are agreeing to, but also the nonprofits in the state, the university researchers, and other partners, the shellfish growers, we all, we bring all of those partners together to outline those goals.

And then every five years we issue a oyster blueprint. So that's been happening since 2003. We're now in the fourth edition of the blueprint and we're about to embark on another update to it. So that'll be our fifth edition and we've made some really great progress. With that model, it's a, it's a voluntary report, it's a voluntary action plan, so nobody is obligated to, to take any of the actions that are outlined.

It's rather a collective set of goals that we all, you know, come together and set objectives to advance these different initiatives around oysters. The Coastal Federation, um, has been leading that [00:10:00] effort in bringing the partners together. in doing the facilitation that's needed to come up with those common sets of goals and action items, and then we track it in an annual State of the Oyster Report.

That State of the Oyster Report is something that's been new in the last 10 years, so since 2015 is when we've started issuing those annual reports, and it's been a really helpful way to track progress and communicate progress and keep all of our partners coordinated as we continue to work on these initiatives and efforts.

Kevin: It's amazing to find coordination between agencies and nonprofits and basically everybody that has an interest in this. I have not heard of such a cohesive kind of approach, in other states. Do you know if this exists elsewhere or are you guys kind of the pioneers in this thing?

Erin Fleckenstein: Um, I think there are some other efforts that are similar, but I…from what I've [00:11:00] seen, the North Carolina Oyster Blueprint is unique in, in bringing together partners for all of those different facets of oysters and trying to balance habitat with harvest and growing shell recycling and outreach and education. And so finding those, those points of common interest and common goals and balancing the needs of all of those partners has, I wouldn't say has been challenging, but it is definitely an art, I would say, to bring all of those partners together and to be able to, find those common goals.

And, you know, the growers might have some specific needs, they need help with that. They don't necessarily need the oyster sanctuaries to be built, but they're going to be supportive of those efforts and vice versa. The folks that are involved in oyster sanctuary work don't necessarily need more oyster farms, but you know, they're going to be supportive of the effort.

So it's, we've been able to find that balance between these different user groups and end [00:12:00] goals. Um, It's been, yeah, it's been really good. And there's other states that I've talked to and they're, you know, taking a more comprehensive approach, I think, in their planning efforts as well. I've seen a lot of efforts where there's been just a habitat restoration plan or just an aquaculture advancement plan or just a water quality plan. But to try and balance all of those together has been, um, I think unique to North Carolina from what I've seen.

Kevin: It makes total sense. I mean, all three of those pieces plus other ones are kind of interdependent. especially I would think the, habitat restoration versus, aquaculture advancement, I seem to recall reading some time ago, about the North Carolina oyster wars and I'm, I don't recall the details, but I believe it was kind of who gets to use what bottom for what purpose? Was that one of the genesis is of trying to [00:13:00] coordinate these different interests.

Erin Fleckenstein: So the North Carolina Oyster Wars was more of around harvest It wasn't so much about the,growing of oysters, but In the late 1800s, the Chesapeake Bay was starting to get overfished, and Virginia and Maryland, um, harvesters were starting to move down into North Carolina waters and looking at Pamlico Sound.

And we had unprecedented harvest occurring in the late 1800s here in our waters. 800, 000 to a million bushels a year were being harvested in the late 1800s. We haven't seen. A harvest like that since, it's more around 150 to 200, 000 bushels now, so it's, it's much reduced from that peak. And so the Oyster Wars was more about limiting harvest of oysters in North Carolina to just North Carolinians. So you have to be a North Carolina resident to get a shellfish harvesting license now.

Kevin: I know that Maryland had quite a difficult time in the [00:14:00] bottom and who could use what areas. So it's interesting as they ran out of oysters and ran into more political issues. They just moved south down into your territory.

Erin Fleckenstein: Yeah.

Kevin: Is most of the Oyster growing in North Carolina, bottom growing or floating gear or dredging Is there a more dominant way of producing oysters there?

Erin Fleckenstein: Um, I would say the industry has changed a lot in the last 10 years. So before 2015, we had, I want to say about 2000 acres that were under either a lease or a franchise. And. The majority of those were bottom culture. since 2015, we've seen a number of new farms come online, and most of them are adding water column leases to their leases. And so the majority of our farming now is in floating gear. as opposed to [00:15:00] bottom culture.

Kevin: So there seem to be so many new, often young people who have decided to check out of the urban corporate world and take up something more beneficial to the environment. And a lot of that goes into new oyster farmers. As a new oyster farmer in North Carolina, is there a process by which they would. connect with the different interest groups within the blueprint. Is that something that happens or do they just start their thing and eventually you guys discover one another and they get on the oyster trail. How does that whole process work?

Erin Fleckenstein: Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's a little more organic at right now, as opposed to a very, Strategic process as far as new growers getting involved. But I will say the North Carolina Shellfish Growers Association, is a great industry group for new growers to get involved with.

They're very well connected among all of these partners. They have a seat at all of our meetings. [00:16:00] Um, we stay in very close coordination with them. We also have some great programs that are administered through our core partners. Community College, Carteret Community College has a shellfish farming academy that they run.

And it's a really wonderful place for new growers to start and learn everything soup to nuts about what it takes to run an oyster farm from business planning to managing your gear, even having internships and coordination opportunities with local growers. So that's a really fantastic effort For new growers and then a third option.

Um, if you're in the Carteret County area, The Coastal Federation is working to design and build what we're calling an Aquaculture Hub. And this is going to be a facility that the Federation manages, it'll be on county land, and it is specifically designed to provide water access for new and existing [00:17:00] growers that don't already have, you know, waterfront property.

There will be a commercial dock to use, and then in the hub itself, there will be sorting and storing equipment. So, big tumblers and refrigeration to store product. And then it'll be an opportunity for distribution of that material to potential buyers. we plan to host between six and 10 growers in that hub facility.

And so there will be opportunity to, you know, connect and network and learn from each other, um, having that community element to it. And then having this shared. space where they can both work their product as well as store, um, refrigerate until it goes to distribution. So we're excited about that model and our plan.

We're hoping it's going to be successful. We know it's going to be successful and we plan to expand that to two other areas of the state. Um, after we [00:18:00] get this first one off the ground

Kevin: That is really exciting because what it does, especially for small time newbies. It lowers the barrier to entry and it enables them to, you know, the startup costs, especially when you're talking about refrigeration and a processing area and that sort of thing and finding distributors, is huge.

Erin Fleckenstein: Yeah.

Kevin: Is that all funded by the member growers in that hub or is that also funded by other organizations?

Erin Fleckenstein: So right now there's funding from a variety of sources. We have, an acronym soup that's helping to fund the program. So EDA, stands for Economic Development Authority. 

Kevin: Um, we'll go with that.

Erin Fleckenstein: Sorry, we have an EDA grant that's funding the majority of the design and permitting of the facility. Carteret County has provided the land for the facility. We also have funding from a local Golden Leaf [00:19:00] Foundation, as well as matching funds from our General Assembly, and some other funds from the, TNC soar program.

So a number of funders have have been sort of hobbled together to make this a reality. And so the design permitting and build of the facility is all being handled by those grants. And we are currently applying for other funding to support the actual operations and management of the facility for the next few years, while we figure out exactly the right formula for Leasing fees and expenses.

How that's going to be managed long term. we have a plan for how it's going to be done, but, need to, you know, see how reality works out. But there will be some nominal fees associated with the growers who use the space, again, trying to reduce those barriers to entry, like you said,

Kevin: I'm really [00:20:00] impressed with the level of coordination between groups and agencies. That's not something you hear a lot of these days. North Carolina seems to have taken a much more logical approach to supporting the aquaculture area. Are there other Similar kind of blueprints or coordinated efforts for, other kinds of shellfish

Also in North Carolina.

Erin Fleckenstein: So sort of as a parallel effort, we have the shellfish mariculture action plan, the SMAC and that did take a more comprehensive look at other shellfish. Not just oysters. We've incorporated a lot of the recommendations that were specific to oysters into the Oyster Blueprint and the work that we're coordinating on that front.

Kevin: In addition to kind of bringing everybody together, sharing the information, creating this kind of cohesive approach, do you find you're getting into almost political action in terms of advocating for those [00:21:00] interests? 

Erin Fleckenstein: I wouldn't categorize the Federation's role in, advancing the mariculture industry. Quite as an advocacy role, the Shellfish Growers Association themselves, have a very active board president who takes on the advocacy role for the industry.

 The East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, you know, has a pretty active arm in the federal government and our board president, the North Carolina president, is the vice chair for the East Coast growers. So a lot of coordination happening there. we work to try and find solutions when there are maybe either policy or public use. Needs that need to be balanced, and I think that's where the Federation comes into play, and we try to bring all of the parties together that need to be at the table and help to facilitate the understanding between groups and try and find common ground and [00:22:00] solutions whenever possible.

We would be seen, I guess, more as advocacy when it comes to water quality protection. And, that's an issue that we take very seriously at the Coastal Federation. And, um, it's really how we cut our teeth as an organization is advocating for clean water. We try to stay out of the fisheries management side of things and let other people figure out the who, the what, the when, the where, the how.

Um, and really trying to take more of a habitat and water quality approach to our efforts.

Kevin: Are you involved in tracking the progress of the oyster industry overall in North Carolina in terms of yield and production and growth? Or is that left to the specific agencies within your umbrella?

Erin Fleckenstein: Yeah, the Division of Marine Fisheries has a very active statistics, um, arm, and so they're taking very close Stock of what's being grown, what's being harvested and [00:23:00] what those trends look like year in and year out. We take their information and we summarize it and put it into our state of the oyster report. And so we do keep track of the trends, but that's not our responsibility. That's the division's efforts.

Kevin: It's amazing how you have, kind of brought together all of the different interests for the benefit of, it sounds like everybody from the producers to the peripherally related environmental interests to the ultimate consumer who's slurping down the oysters. It's got to be a model that other states hopefully, you know are watching what you guys are doing and learning from you It's pretty remarkable.

Erin Fleckenstein: I think we do have a unique climate though here in North Carolina. I will say as far as Still relatively small it's it's a it's a big coastal area, but relatively small population centers Um, still, you know, growers [00:24:00] that number just in the couple hundreds, not thousands. So it's, it's a smaller population of people that we're having to work with and coordinate, um, at this point. So I think that helps to facilitate the coordination.

Do you anticipate a lot of growth in the coming years, uh, new farmers, expanding farms that are already there, that kind of thing? We've seen a lot of growth and the last 10 years, the oyster harvest from farms has increased tenfold. So we're seeing a lot more productivity on these farms.

We haven't had a tenfold increase in the number of farmers or acreage. So there. You know, because I think of the transition to more of that water column gear, we're seeing a lot more productivity, but smaller footprint needed in order to reach those production goals. We've set a goal, um, through that smack planning effort, the mariculture plan that I told you about to increase the industry to a [00:25:00] hundred million dollar industry by 2030.

And we're currently at about. 25 million industry, 30 million industry. So we're about a third of the way there. And, um, we don't need a whole lot more acreage in order to meet those production goals because of, you know, the change in technology, existing farmers, might have the opportunity to expand their footprint a little bit or convert more of their gear to water column. gear and be able to use all of the acreage that they've already put under lease. Some, you know, some farmers have found that they can only really manage and work one to two acres of their five acre lease with their staff. But as they become more productive, they can hire more, staff in order to increase production.

So it remains to be seen how much larger the industry and how many more, um, growers will become involved. I think there's, there is [00:26:00] opportunity and, we're trying to find that balance of water uses, as I mentioned, as we move forward, especially there's some areas of the coast where we do have higher population centers.

We do have more, existing farms and, and competing uses where it's getting to be a little bit more challenging with new leases, but then there are other areas of the state where there's still opportunity to, Work to smartly site these additional farms that will help us reach that goal.

Kevin: Well, that's great to hear and it sounds like an ambitious goal, but it sounds like you're well on your way. So I hope to see that you reach that as quickly as possible. Now, on a personal level, are you an oyster eater? Are you an oyster fan?

Erin Fleckenstein: I do enjoy eating oysters. Yeah, I, I didn't when I first started the job and my boss said I think that's going to be an interview question moving forward, but I am a convertee and I do enjoy eating [00:27:00] oysters now. Yes.

Kevin: Do you have a favorite North Carolina oyster that you're willing to reveal?

Erin Fleckenstein: I just love a North Carolina oyster. They, I, we have some of the cleanest water in the, in the country. And so it makes me feel good to know that I'm eating, you know, oysters that have been grown in clean water by farmers that I might have a personal connection with. Um, you know, that just, that makes me feel good. And I don't know that I have a favorite. I enjoy a salty oyster, so…

Kevin: And the Sounds in North Carolina I think are probably perfect for that nice big briny oyster. where there's not as much freshwater coming in. So you get a lot more brine, but you still get a lot of moving water. So you get really, really healthy oysters.

Erin Fleckenstein: Yeah.

Kevin: Well, I want to thank you for your time and your amazing information, it's just so interesting. the level of [00:28:00] coordination and cohesion that you guys have created is astounding and so important because There are so many different interests that newed to work together to make the oyster industry thrive as well as protect the environment And I think that it should be seen as kind of the model or, dare I say, the blueprint, uh, for other states to follow going forward. So thank you very much I really appreciate it, Erin.

Erin Fleckenstein: Thank you. I appreciate you reaching out and showing your interest in this.

Kevin: It is important to point out that many states have been developing their own versions of oyster trails, which enable both producers and eaters access to each other to grow their markets. Each one has its own design look and feel, and I find it interesting to examine and compare how each state does it.

North Carolina has taken that concept and folded it into a broader, more comprehensive approach to supporting aquaculture efforts by keeping a clear eye on the industry overall with [00:29:00] each area of importance in mind. At the same time, I believe that it is only through this sort of stewardship that oyster consumption can grow in the direction of what it was decades ago without destroying the environment and the oyster populations like we have done in the past.

Well, that's it for this episode of OYSTER-ology. Thanks to my guest, Erin Fleckenstein. Links to the North Carolina Oyster Blueprint and the Oyster Trail itself can be found in the show notes. And if you want to remark on this episode or anything else about OYSTER-ology, please leave a comment or send us a note. I read every one, want to know what you think of the show and have a thick skin, so don't be shy. And please FOLLOW this show and tell others about it too. With every new listener, our show can grow and thrive just like an oyster, but hopefully a little quicker. Thanks for listening, and be sure to join us again next time when we pry open the shell of another interesting OYSTER-ology topic.[00:30:00]

[Bubbles]