My Nonprofit Reviews

Back in 1997, the Maryland artificial reef program was discontinued as a State-funded program as a budget austerity measure. My agency at the time the Maryland Environmental Service, took the permits and I became the reef program manager. We were a not-for-profit, self- supporting agency with no appropriated funds. We were barely able to keep the program afloat with donated materials and fee-for'service charges for field nspection and a lot of donated staff time. We then "discovered" Reef Balls. The Reef Ball Foundation worked with us to bring Reef Balls into the program. We worked with the Foundation and Reef Innovations and the Oyster Recovery Partnership to hold introductory demonstration and production pours and opened the event to any and all interested parties. We used a combination of used and new molds purchased at the non-profit rate with a grant from my parent agency. We also worked with the Foundation and the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to test Reef Balls for natural oyster spat sets and in coordination with the Horn Point Oyster Hatchery, the feasibility of setting oyster spat on Reef Balls at a hatchery. Success on both tracts in conjunction with volunteer pours jointly sponsored by MES and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and a natural oyster spat set on Reef Balls at an initial test site that resulted in a robust natural oyster reef led to grants to continue this restoration work. All this eventually led to multiple groups in Maryland and Northern Virginia ssupporting and and engaging in volunteer Reef Ball pours including pours at middle schools, high schools, junior colleges, and with community groups, environmental groups, and other interested parties. The Reef Ball Foundation has been a resource for technical support throughout these various activities, and continues to innovate with marine habitat restoration structures, most notably with living shorelines andvusing Reef Balls as offshore shoreline protection structures. But for the Reef Ball Foundation's support and technical advice for the oyster spat experiment and support for the initialnNES pour capability, the extensive use of Reef Balls in Maryland's portion of the Chesapeake Bay for oyster restoration and artificial reefs would not have achieved the robust multiparty engagement that now occurs.