LSU professors pry open new world with oyster farm

GRAND ISLE, La. -- With a 20 mph north wind whipping up whitecaps on Caminada Bay, it's a Saturday where most small boat owners have second thoughts about venturing from shore. But not Steve Pollock.

He has to check his oysters.

If Pollock's 19-foot pleasure craft seems an unconventional commercial fishing boat, he and his wife, Ginger Brininstool, are even more unlikely oystermen. Each teaches biology at LSU, and, until recently, aquariums were their primary contact with marine life.

But a year ago, while visiting their camp on Grand Isle, Brininstool saw an item in the Lafourche Gazette about water leases available for an alternative form of raising oysters.

"I told Steve, 'You should check this out. This is something we could do," Brininstool said.

Now, the Triple N Oyster Farm is something they are doing.

Growing oysters in containers that float or are suspended off the bottom has been done elsewhere, but only recently came to Louisiana. The Grand Isle Port Commission made 300-by-300-foot plots of water available to such oyster operations near the west end of the island.

Read the full story at The Advocate.

This story was originally published April 24, 2016 at 4:34 PM with the headline "LSU professors pry open new world with oyster farm ."