ASR Group’s Domino Sugar is continuing improvements to its 24-acre Locust Point campus as it will be installing an oyster garden on its piers tomorrow.

A total of 50 wire mesh cages, built by Domino Sugar employees on Earth Day, will be filled with dozens of baby oysters, or spat, and lowered into the water beneath one of the facility’s piers. The oysters will grow protected for several months in the water. Periodically, volunteers from the Baltimore Refinery will clean the cages in order to allow the free flow of water and plankton to reach the oysters so they can grow at a faster rate. Next summer, once the oysters have grown large enough to survive outside their cages, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation will collect the oysters and place them in a sanctuary reef near the Key Bridge.

Oysters are a natural water filter with adult oysters filtering as much as 50 gallons of water per day. The current oyster population is estimated at a small fraction of its original levels, according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

“This is a great opportunity for Domino Sugar to use our waterfront location to help clean the waters of the Patapsco River,” said ASR Group’s Baltimore Refinery Manager Kelly DeAngelo in a press release. “Thanks to our employees and assistance from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, we are able to help make quantifiable improvements to water quality. It is our hope to double the number of oysters grown here next year.”

In 2016 Domino Sugar completed a number of improvements to its campus. This included the replacement of more than 250 windows; a 2,000 ft.-long black steel picket fence that replaced the original 1922 iron fencing; two new signs; landscaping improvements; and a new retaining wall for the truck lot at Key Hwy. and Stevenson St. The wall includes a modular biofiltration system to treat storm water.

Last year the company added a “Welcome To Locust Point” painted sign on its building at 1020 Key Hwy.

Domino Sugar also installed 35 kW solar panels in recent years.

Photos courtesy of Domino Sugar

Photos of recent improvements courtesy of Domino Sugar