From the mud flats of Cape May County and up through the waters of Barnegat Bay, a small group of oyster farmers heads to work each day with the flow of the tides, tending their crop amid the hushed lapping of waves on shore.
It's an idyll that belies their other constant companion: worry.
They know the history of oysters in New Jersey, rife with perils that could doom their crop and the once-mighty industry they toil to revive.
Pollution. Poachers. Parasites. Disease.
But what really horrifies them is a more recent tale involving one of their own: Marc Zitter, a rookie farmer who found brief, stunning success growing oysters, only to be brought to his knees in a bizarre two-year battle with the State of New Jersey.
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