Oyster reef removal in Magothy starts Monday | Maryland Gazette (HometownGlenBurnie.com)

The news came as a relief to the handful of residents gathered Wednesday night at the Sillery Bay Community Pavilion along the Magothy River, where DNR representatives met with them to discuss the project.

They acknowledged it's a discussion that probably should have happened before the artificial reef was installed nearly a year ago.

"For the future, we all are aware and know that communities need to be called," said Chris Judy, the DNR shellfish program director. "If it's going to affect a community - Sylvan View, Hunters Harbor, Sillery Bay - those communities need to be called."

The Mary Jo Garreis Memorial Reef, projected to hold up to 4 million water-cleansing oysters, was constructed with crushed concrete that contained too much other debris that ended up washing ashore and making a mess of the beach.

The state also dumped the reef in a part of the river that was too shallow, creating a boating hazard.

"Those are two significant problems," said Tom O'Connell, DNR director of fisheries.

Contractor Langenfelder Marine, which laid the reef last year, will dredge it using a barge with a crane and a clam bucket. In the meantime, seven buoys are floating in the water, warning boaters to stay away until the work is completed.

The removal carries a $59,000 price tag, which the state will pay, Mr. Judy said. That puts the total cost of the project so far at almost $200,000.

One resident asked after the meeting why Langenfelder Marine isn't picking up the tab.

"They put it in the right place according to the specifications," Mr. Judy said. "They did what they were supposed to do, and they shouldn't have to pay for it."

The state also bid out the removal project, and the Stevensville-based company was the low bidder, he said later. Mr. O'Connell said a half-dozen companies bid on the project, with some bids as high as several hundred thousand dollars.

Last summer, the DNR contracted with Maryland Environmental Service, a quasi-private state agency, to lay the base for the 2-acre reef. MES then contracted with Langenfelder.

MES was supposed to inspect the material to make sure it didn't contain too much foreign debris like the plastic and wood pieces that washed up on the beach. But they didn't, Mr. Judy said.

That's one of the most important take-home lessons from the debacle, he said. "We need to make sure we verify that everything has been inspected properly."

In a written statement, a spokesman for Millersville-based MES rebutted Mr. Judy's comments.

"MES worked very closely with DNR to properly manage and inspect the placement of material," spokesman Chris Garrigan wrote in an e-mail. "As soon as our inspectors noticed the debris during the placement, we stopped the contractor and required that they better sort the material. When the placement resumed and our inspector saw more debris, we stopped the placement."

According to site surveys, the reef was supposed to go in a part of the river that's between 7 and 11 feet deep.

But the problem is that officials pulled those figures from 70-year-old maps, said Jerry Smith, president of the Sillery Bay-Hunters Harbor Civic Recreation Association.

The Magothy River Association recommended the site as part of its five-year river restoration plan. Those plans were announced at the MRA's annual State of the Magothy meeting months before the reef was installed, said Dick Carey, an MRA volunteer.

"Nobody commented on it," he said.

That's because no one knew about it, countered Mary Ann Wood, a Sillery Bay resident.

MRA President Paul Spadaro said Sillery Bay remains a good place for an artificial reef. No one could have predicted this fiasco would happen, he said.

"It's sort of like blaming the air traffic control for not shutting down on 9/10," he said.

Mr. Judy said there was talk of moving the reef to a deeper part of the river, but DNR decided against it.

"If it was suitable … but the material was not suitable," he said. "Why would we want to transfer an issue somewhere else?"