Eastbayri.com

PORTSMOUTH — His first oyster farm is bursting at the seams with young oysters and now Peter Brown has won most of the permits needed to open a second plot off Portsmouth’s west shore.

Meeting last Wednesday evening in Jamestown, the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) gave its unanimous approval to the Bristol resident’s application to farm a three-acre section of water north of Coggeshall Point. Mr. Brown said nobody spoke in opposition to his request. He now needs only the blessing of the state Marine Fisheries Council.

The location is out from the end of Cory’s Lane and roughly below Portsmouth Abbey School — “I get good view of the wind turbine,” Mr. Brown said.

The new spot is close to the two-acre plot that Mr. Brown has quietly farmed since 2006.

“I’ve filled that one with oysters and need room to expand,” he said.

It’s an indication that things are going well for his venture, though Mr. Brown said that there are always challenges lurking in this line of work.

“We have been fortunate so far but there are always threats out there,” most worrisome of which are the diseases that occasionally sweep through any shellfish population — farmed or wild. “They have no defense.”

He’s buying seedlings from a Maine outfit now that the supplier says are supposed to be more disease resistant — ”We’ll see.”

The smooth process is in marked contrast to the furor that surrounded Peter Sebring’s attempt to start an oyster farm in Nanaquaket Pond. Despite encouraging words from CRMC, Mr. Sebring and partner Jim Duckett eventually dropped their proposal in the face of organized opposition from pond neighbors (Mr. Sebring called it harassment) and then the Tiverton Town Council.

There are differences in the ventures.

The cages used by Mr. Brown to protect his young oysters lie on the bottom.

“All you see out there is the buoys that mark the cages,” he said.

Nanaquaket neighbors had objected to the idea that the proposal there would create “a floating sea of plastic.”

The Portsmouth location is off a much more sparsely populated stretch of shoreline.

And Mr. Brown does none of his work on the Portsmouth shore. He instead tends his farm using a 24-foot boat that he docks near Independence Park in Bristol.

“I keep a pretty low profile out there,” he said.

In a business notable for its failure rate, Mr. Brown’s farm has done well almost from the start.

In his first year he deliberately bought larger, more expensive oyster seedlings in hopes of faster delivery to market and first payday, a gamble that worked.

His farm is now home to over a million little oysters which he said thrive in those waters which offer the healthy tidal currents that oysters need.

Some of these he sells to a Boston wholesaler who ships the high quality oysters to customers across the country and even the world.

“Refrigerated oysters live for a very long time,” he said, so are well-suited for long-distance export.

Mr. Brown said his oysters are in demand in part because of the care lavished on them.

Early in the season, for instance, when barnacles begin to take hold on every available surface including oyster shells, he gives his oysters a ride in the “tumbler.” The experience knocks off the barnacles before they can take firm hold and leaves a smooth, appealing oyster shell.

Not only are the oysters not harmed by the experience, but “they like it,” he said.

Others of his oysters go to Jenny’s Creek on Prudence Island as part of a federal project building on oyster restoration work begun by the late Luther Blount. Roger Williams University is a leading participant in that project.

Started as quahogger

A New York native, Mr. Brown got his start as a quahogger in 1972, working up and down the East Coast.

For many years that provided him with sufficient income but that fishery isn’t what it used to be.

“When I got my license here it was number 5,000, he said. “Now there are only about 300 out on the bay.”

His first aquaculture venture was in Florida.

“I tried growing quahogs but there was a big problem — fresh water runoff.”

Runoff from a hurricane that first year wiped out his crop. “We lost everything.”

But because the damage was hurricane related, he qualified for storm relief. He used the money to try again, this time with oysters in Narragansett Bay. His first application took eight months to win approval.

The secret to oyster farming is mostly “hard work. “Oysters need constant attention and care. You can’t just leave them out there to fend for themselves.”

All that effort is beginning to pay off.

“We grow a real select oyster, it’s what the buyers want.”

Oyster comeback?

Although another wild oyster comeback visited the bay in the 1990s and then crashed, Mr. Brown said he is encouraged to see a few wild sets taking hold, especially in the Kickemuit River.

He kept a boat there for awhile and was surprised to see that dozens of tiny oysters had made a perch for themselves on his motor’s trim tab. He has since seen young oysters at the new Kickie boat ramp.

“It’s a good sign,” he said, adding that he hopes the oysters are allowed to grow and spawn.