Not everyone likes oysters

Several readers who probably like oysters a lot and who appreciate the attempts to recover oysters in North Carolina's sounds and rivers let me know about Sunday's column, but one reader from Wake Forest let me know he believes government has no business and no responsibility in restoring oyster reefs because it consumes tax dollars. And it's just a pork barrel project, he thinks.

JACK: (You write) ”But for my money, you won’t find a stimulus project that offers more.” The state is broke. The federal government is bankrupt and you RINO”S are thinking of more ways to spend the dollars that we do not have unless we borrow them and have our children pay it back. If its such a good deal why don’t you start a private fund to put up the money for this PORK project and make the money back by taxing oyster sales? Or better still let us know what budget item you would de-fund to fund this one.

Others liked the idea of the government partnering with non-profit organizations to tackle the probem.

A Charotte reader wrote:
I enjoyed your oyster piece today, and am pleased to see some stimulus money going toward fixing a broken ecosystem. Thanks for giving us some encouraging news.
But just providing more habitat isn’t going to solve the problem unless the other causes you mention are addressed. How about the sources of poor water quality? Where’s all that hog-waste going, if not to the sea? And what about the overfishing? Has there been any meaningful legislation or regulation to prevent it from happening again?

A Raleigh reader wrote:

I enjoyed your column on the oyster revival day before yesterday. I was talking to Danny Mason of Sea Level, one of my long-haul fishing buddies, who has been oystering most winters, who said he had one of his best winters yet. He stays mostly in Core Sound, I believe. One
of his major problems has been selling the oysters he catches.
He has had to rely on word of mouth to get customers to come to him.
This year he found a buyer about an hour away and has been selling to him. Hard to believe we can't find customers for North Carolina oysters. I was at the 42nd St. Oyster Bar in Raleigh a few years ago
and asked where they get their shrimp and oysters from. Louisiana!
They can't get them from North carolina sources in the quantities they need them.