The manager of an oyster-farming operation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore was found guilty July 6 of tampering with evidence amid a state investigation into allegations of widespread dumping of illegal oyster bed material into the Chesapeake Bay.
Daniel R. Webster Sr., 75, of Deal Island faces up to three years behind bars and up to a $5,000 fine stemming from a misdemeanor charge of altering evidence. He also was charged with obstructing and hindering an investigation, another misdemeanor.
Somerset County District Court Judge Paula A. Price scheduled his sentencing for Sept. 14. She allowed Webster to remain free in the meantime, but not before handing him a rebuke.
“People are wrung up about this,” Price told Webster as he stood behind the defendant’s table in a navy-blue suit. “You’re supposed to be helping the Bay, not contaminating it.”
Webster shot back in reply: “That’s what we’re doing.”
The episode represents a flash point in efforts to supply enough suitable bed material for Maryland’s growing oyster-farming industry and publicly funded reef restoration projects. Watermen and state officials have struggled in recent years to find enough recycled shells to replenish oyster beds, forcing them to increasingly turn to alternative substrate, such as crushed concrete.
Maryland Natural Resources Police investigators are still looking into whether illegal substrate was dumped on oyster beds leased by Webster’s boss, Phillip “Jamie” Harrington, a Dorchester County businessman. NRP officials say they expect to wrap up the investigation by August or September.
Harrington didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.
The trouble began in late April when NRP received a tip about boats dumping concrete mixed with plastic onto privately leased oyster grounds off Deal Island, a Somerset County waterman community. The state leases thousands of acres of submerged plots where commercial operations can raise and harvest oysters.
Hunks of plastic were washing up on the shoreline, littering boat ramps and lurking beneath the water’s surface near and far away, said NRP Cpl. Zachary Ruark, who conducted the initial investigation.
The contamination caused a stir, he added. “It came down our chain pretty hot and heavy,” Ruark said.
Webster, a longtime vocal advocate for watermen in Somerset County, became the subject of a separate investigation because of what happened next. On May 4, he took a boat to one of Harrington’s oyster farms off Deal Island and removed the buoys that marked the corners of the leased area. He also made two passes across the bottom with the boat’s dredge down, potentially disturbing evidence, according to the written NRP account.
NRP officer Dylan Tawes, who by now was leading the dumping investigation, said he could plainly see what was going on because it was right outside his agency’s office on the Deal Island harbor.
“He was right in front of our parking lot,” Tawes testified.
Webster didn’t deny that he retrieved the buoys and dredged the bottom. He contended that NRP officers failed to make clear to him beforehand that the sites were to remain untouched while the dumping investigation played out. Tawes said Webster was told multiple times.
Webster told the court he was only doing what he normally does with the buoys: taking them up to get them out of the way for crab potters. And as for the dredging, he said he was trying to make sure that workers hadn’t missed any spots while placing the substrate.
He didn’t realize he was doing anything wrong, he added.
“That’s why I was caught off-guard when officer Tawes approached me,” Webster said. “I’m just the messenger here.”
During her ruling, Judge Price rebuffed Webster’s explanation.
“When [he] took those buoys away, he took their evidence away,” she said. “He knew exactly what he was doing.” She added, “He was not to do that [expletive], and he did that [expletive].”
It’s unclear whether Webster will appeal the ruling, but he said afterward that he was frustrated with the result, telling the Chesapeake Bay Journal that he was “not guilty.”
Meanwhile, the original investigation continues. An NRP spokesman said in a statement that the agency “has not yet filed charges regarding illegal dumping or the use of unapproved debris as oyster bottom substrate.” The probe also involves the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Aquaculture Division of the Maryland Department of Natural Resource’s Fishing and Boating Services unit, and the Maryland Attorney General’s Environmental and Natural Resources Crime Unit.
The “administrative hold” on oystering activity in the area of the affected lease sites remained in place as of July 6, according to the statement.