Manokin River Restoration
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Large-scale restoration efforts began in 2021 in the Manokin River sanctuary. The initial implementation phase of the restoration project is anticipated for completion in 2025, with a total of 441 acres of reef restored.
The restoration plan for the Manokin River may be found
here.
Restoration sites are identified as ‘seed only’ restoration (hatchery-produced spat-on-shell added to existing remnant reefs) or ‘substrate + seed’ restoration (adding reef-building substrate to the reef footprint, followed by planting with hatchery-produced spat-on-shell) or ‘premet’ (sites that already meet the Oyster Metrics target oyster density (50+ oysters per m2) and oyster biomass (50+ grams per m2) and not slated to receive initial restoration). Site treatments may change based annual pre-restoration groundtruthing survey results.
All planned groundtruthing has for the Manokin sanctuary was completed in the fall of 2022. The pre-construction groundtruthing reports can be found here, 
Fall 2019,
Spring 2020,
Fall 2020,
Spring 2021,Fall 2021 and Spring 2022, and
Fall 2022. Based on all groundtruthing being complete, the final restoration acreages for each treatment are now known. There are no areas that met the premet restoration classification. There are 308 acres that are slated for seed only restoration and 133 acres slated to receive substrate and seed restoration.
Manokin River Restoration Reefs
Below is an interactive map with planned restoration reefs in the Manokin River Sanctuary. The legend and layers are located in the upper right hand corner. You can click on a reef to see more information. The information on the map was last updated in March 2023.
Restoration sites are identified as ‘seed only’ restoration (hatchery-produced spat-on-shell added to existing remnant reefs) or ‘substrate + seed’ restoration (adding reef-building substrate to the reef footprint, followed by planting with hatchery-produced spat-on-shell) or ‘premet’ (sites that already meet the Oyster Metrics target oyster density (50+ oysters per m2) and oyster biomass (50+ grams per m2) and not slated to receive initial restoration).
