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To jump-start the new oyster habitat, the team put old shells in a water tank to create a “cultch” that oyster larvae could cling to and grow on.

Banks says that reef habitat improvement and rehabilitation projects, using cultch, or shell, have been ongoing on public grounds since 1917.

If you haven’t heard of Marie Kondo, you must be trapped under a pile of household cultch that doesn’t, as she would say, spark joy.

These freckled shells — called seeded cultch — are trucked back to their natal tidelands to help kick-start the population.

But as part of an effort to mitigate carbon emissions and improve water quality and habitat by planting kelp and eelgrass, the Port of Seattle also scattered 6,000 pounds of seeded cultch last fall.