Plans for Oyster Farm in Kingston Bay

Two longtime clam-diggers in the bay and one newcomer want to cultivate and harvest oysters across several acres of the bay.

Thomas Taylor, who manages the snack shack at Gray's Beach in the summer and has owned a fish market in the center of Kingston for seven years, says he is willing to invest as much as $20,000 in nets and fledgling shellfish, called seeds, to start cultivating oysters on three acres in Kingston Bay, according to reports in the Boston Globe.

Fellow entrepreneurs John Wheble and Greg Barker also are looking for three acres each. Wheble and Taylor hold commercial mussel licenses from the town.

"It's a risk, but it's really exciting," Barker told the Boston Globe.

Kingston selectmen last month unanimously approved moving the Kingston Bay proposal to the state level, and Taylor and his associates are waiting for the state Division of Marine Fisheries to conduct a survey of existing shellfish in the bay.

The aquaculture farm would not be the first in the area. A larger commercial operation exists in neighboring Duxbury. It harvests about 100,000 oysters each week and ships them to restaurants.