Tugging on a thick, worn rope tied to the edge of a dock, William Grinnell pulls up a black wire cage, a temporary home to more than 150 Chesapeake Bay oysters.

Every week for the previous 10 months, the 11-year-old has traveled from his home in Clarksville to Severna Park to check these oysters and another 650 or so kept in cages at his family's second home. He removes fish, crabs and other creatures, then hoses down the oysters and lowers them back into the water.

But on this early June day, after giving the cages a thorough wash, his work raising the oysters is done.

William and his father, John, haul the oysters from the Severn River and prepare to plant them in the Chesapeake Bay.

The Grinnells' work was part of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's oyster gardening program. The program, which began in 1996, has been a key component in the restoration of the Bay, specifically the native oyster population. That population is currently 2 percent of its original level, according to Tom Zolper, communications coordinator for the foundation.

That low level concerns environmentalists, who say oysters are the Bay's best natural filters. According to the foundation, each adult oyster is able to filter 60 gallons of water a day, eliminating pollutants such as nitrogen and other harmful nutrients from the water. That means the collection of oysters raised by the Grinnells is capable of filtering more than 47,000 gallons of water in one day.

In addition, Bay experts note, oysters serve as a habitat for a range of marine plants and animals.

To boost the oyster population, some 450 families like the Grinnells this year participated in the oyster-raising program, Zolper said, contributing a total of 500,000 oysters to the Bay.

'Treasuring the Chesapeake'

William, a fifth-grade student at Clarksville Elementary School, took an interest in the Bay after studying a unit on "Treasuring the Chesapeake" last year.

"I had to plant water grass in fourth grade and this year my class went on a field trip to Baltimore and planted trees to repair a forest buffer," William said.

Recognizing his interest in the Bay, William's mother, Kim Grinnell, encouraged John and William to participate in the oyster gardening program, thinking their house on the water in Severna Park would be the perfect location for raising oysters.

New to raising oysters, John and William took a training class on oyster gardening through the foundation in August 2008 and learned that they would receive oyster larvae called "spat." The class also taught them to build the oyster cages provided by the foundation, to remove other marine life that became lodged in the oyster cages, and how to properly care for the oysters.

Over the next 10 months, William and John took great care in raising the oysters, hosing them down weekly in the warmer months and letting them grow undisturbed during the colder months when oysters are dormant.

"Pulling up the cages to clean them and finding the creatures that came up with the oysters like eel, fish, and crabs was the best part," William said.

By June, John and William had raised about 792 healthy oysters ready to be planted into the Severn River. The Grinnells toted their oysters in a bright red tub to the Annapolis City dock, joining hundreds of containers of oysters raised by other residents.

Each year in June, the foundation plans a boat trip for the oyster gardeners to plant -- or more accurately, dump -- their oysters into a no-harvesting oyster sanctuary in the Severn River.

This year's trip was June 2. On that day, John and William Grinnell and about 25 other oyster gardeners boarded the Chesapeake Bay Foundation boat, Marguerite, to release their 10-month-old adult oysters.

Once over a protected oyster reef near Annapolis, on the Severn River, the father and son eagerly helped throw the oysters overboard, together lifting the heavy red tub over the railing of the boat and watching as their oysters fell into the water.

When asked if he and William would participate in the program for a second year, John was emphatic.

"We will definitely raise oysters again." he said.

Added his wife, Kim: "We love the water. Any way we can make a contribution, we're happy to help."

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