Shell Cycle
The Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana returns slurped shells to the Gulf.
At Clesi’s outdoor “Boil Pad” in Mid-City, New Orleans, master boiler and chief shucker Jarvis Smith empties a bag of oysters—harvested by P&J Oysters from the coast—onto the “crawfish walker,” a stainless, slanted tray where the shells take a bath prior to shucking. With his hand protected by a towel, Smith picks up the largest of the bunch and expertly wedges an oyster knife into the closed shell to pry it open. Within minutes, he’s managed to display a half-dozen on a bed of ice. Crackers in hand, we anxiously dig in, scooping out the plump meat and garnishing it with horseradish and hot sauce before slurping down the salty treat.
In a few days, the shells left behind from our feast will be retrieved from the restaurant’s recycle bins and carted off to the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL) Restoration Headquarters in Violet. They’ll spend the next three to six months curing before being loaded into aquaculture-grade mesh bags. Then, they’ll find their final resting place in a carefully-selected spot on the fragile coastline, a tiny soldier in Louisiana’s fight against coastal land loss.
Launched in 2014, CRCL’s Oyster Shell Recycling Program carries a tagline of “Once you shuck ‘em, don’t just chuck ‘em!” The nonprofit aims to combat coastal land loss while also keeping oyster shells out of landfills. Since the program’s inception, twenty-three New Orleans area restaurants have elected to participate, and the group has recycled more than 12.5 million pounds of shell, bolstering over eight thousand linear feet of shoreline along the coast. On its own, Clesi’s—which is owned by sibling trio James, Carlo, and Sonya Clesi—has recycled more than forty-five thousand pounds of oyster shells since May 2021.
“The cause is good,” said Carlo. “They help us dispose of the shells, and we help with restoration efforts. It’s a win/win situation. We’ve been really happy with the program.”
Once a year, often in the fall, CRCL chooses one location to deploy its bagged oyster shells and build a protective reef. So far, artificial reefs have been built in the Biloxi Marsh, Bayou Pointe-au-Chien, Barataria Bay, Adamas Bay, and around mound sites near Montegut and in Plaquemines. The reefs not only serve as a solid barrier against the Gulf’s breaking waves, but as thriving home to oyster spat (or oyster larvae), which grows best on oyster shell substrate. More living oyster reefs also means improved water quality, more fish habitat, and support for our local seafood economy.
“The cause is good...[CRCL] help us dispose of the shells, and we help with restoration efforts. It’s a win/win situation. We’ve been really happy with the program.” —Carlo Clesi
On a warm, sunny day last September, we had an opportunity to participate in the fifth deployment—Phase One of the Pointe-au-Chien Community Reef near Montegut. Phase Two is set to be completed in the fall of 2023. The road to this tiny village flanks Bayou Terrebonne, heading due south to where the land slides gently into the marsh and the Gulf’s open waters. Homes towered above us on stilts, while others lay scattered in pieces, the remnants of Hurricane Ida’s devastating winds.
At the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribal Community Center, staffers manned a tent checking in volunteers and handing out breakfast snacks and work gloves. Andrew Ferris stood watch over the Community Art Living Shorelines booth, inviting visitors to create a tiny work of art on the smooth oyster shell interiors. Ferris works with CRCL’s Native Plants Program, which hosts tree, dune grass, and marsh grass plantings throughout southern Louisiana.
As we talked, a busload of volunteers from Tulane arrived, and a young woman with dark hair plaited in twin braids beckoned the group to a nearby open area. Darrah Bach, Oyster Shell Recycling Program coordinator, thanked the crowd and introduced the program, “We’re putting out bagged oyster shells in a reef formation to create structure and promote oyster growth. We built one in 2019, and it’s become one of the best recruitments of new oysters seen anywhere.”
She tasked us with forming a fire line to lift sacks of shells and load them into waiting boats. The boats, we learned, were captained by Pointe-au-Chien tribal members, who would then ferry passengers down the bayou to the reef deployment site. When called out by name, the men waved shyly from the back before returning to their private conversation, spoken in French.
We split into teams and donned our gloves to protect against the shells’ sharp edges. The strongest of our peers heaved mesh bags of oyster shells out of colossal white sacks and passed them to their closest team member. Hands moved rapidly, conveying the bags across the fire line until each boat was filled. Then volunteers boarded the boats and set off down the bayou.
While we waited our turn, Bach spoke passionately about the program, “I was studying the local environment at Tulane, and I felt a duty to stay and work in the field. This is one of the first programs like this and the biggest in the country.” Restaurants have embraced the program, she said, and would likely participate in other recycling opportunities, “I can see it spreading. I see a future where other green kitchen tenants are requested.”
Bach explained that Louisiana has an oyster shell deficit—we’re taking them out faster than they can replace themselves. The state produces around one-third of the nation’s oysters, but most of the shells end up in landfills. By offering restaurants a chance to recycle their shells, CRCL is able to build reefs and provide nurseries for oyster spat.
“Through a shoreline erosion analysis using Google Earth and drone footage, we’ve seen a fifty percent reduction in land loss at the Biloxi site,” said Bach. “The original reef deployment for the Pointe-au-Chien community was in 2019. After Ida, we came out here and saw a fully intact reef with oysters and crabs. In fact, the storm pushed the shells further into banks and almost cemented them into place.”
After its first deployments, CRCL started choosing sites with cultural significance, particularly to Louisiana’s Indigenous communities. “We chose mound areas because these feel like a more significant loss and provide more impact for the project,” said Bach. “We’re giving shell back to the people who relied on healthy reefs for ages.”
“This is one of the oldest continuously-habited areas in Louisiana,” said Pointe-au-Chien tribal member Patty Ferguson-Bohnee, who is also a professor and the Director of the Indian Legal Clinic at Arizona State University. “Maintaining these mounds is important to our cultural heritage. We have had significant land loss over the years: oil and gas extraction brings in saltwater, the Mississippi River is cut off so it can’t bring in land. We’ve lost two hundred million tons of sediment. Skeleton trees down the bayou mark where houses, homes, gardens, and people lived.”
“The original reef deployment for the Pointe-au-Chien community was in 2019. After Ida, we came out here and saw a fully intact reef with oysters and crabs. In fact, the storm pushed the shells further into banks and almost cemented them into place.” —Darrah Bach
We saw firsthand the skeleton trees when it was our turn to ride out to the reef location. Our softspoken captain, Earl Billiot, works as a crabber, leaving every day before the sun comes up. As he led us beyond the edge of civilization, we saw majestic wild horses standing in the marsh, silently observing as we passed. A graveyard of live oak trees shimmered in the heat like ghosts in the wind, and a fallen-down fence marked the remains of an old cattle corral.
At the reef site, volunteers jumped overboard and began stacking the oyster shell bags three sacks wide and high enough to see above the water. Within minutes, our boat was emptied of its cargo, and the waves gently lapped at the new reef. We briefly admired the work before Billiot steered us home, lingering around a pod of dolphins as they played around us. Farther along, a large alligator rested directly underneath a pipe bathing him with water, his mouth agape.
As the boat docked, CRCL handed out t-shirts to remind us of our day working to restore the coast. Despite the land loss and destruction this area has experienced, we all left with a sense of accomplishment, feeling we had played some small part in protecting a piece of Louisiana.