A Monumental Task Carried Out by a Small Group of People
The entire program is carried out by three people. Leija manages the program as a whole, but she also has help from her colleague Shannon Batte, the foundation’s habitat restoration technician. She is the lead on shell recycling operations and handles pickups, drop offs, and restaurant partnerships. A third staffer helps with the oyster shell volunteer efforts.
Three times a week, Batte drives the foundation truck, which hauls the trailer, and makes three to five stops to local restaurant partners to pick up their full bins and drop off empty ones. She loads the recycling bins into the trailer and then drops the shells off at the foundation’s curing sites.
Batte said her experience with the program has been rewarding because it’s given her a firsthand experience of how the effort helps rebuild oyster populations. When asked about her favorite part of the program, Batte said she really liked monitoring the foundation’s reefs.
“Periodically we observe our oyster reefs to monitor their productivity and seeing baby oysters (also known as spat) growing on oyster shells that Galveston Bay Foundation has recycled is always exciting,” she said.
