Shoring up the shoreline
Billion Oyster Project scientists install shellfi sh off Brooklyn Bridge Park
BY BEN VERDE
Scientists with the Billion
Oyster Project submerged 30
new shellfi sh cages in the waterway
at Brooklyn Bridge
Park on Friday, continuing a
years-long project to bring oysters
to Brooklyn’s shorelines.
New York City restaurants
donated oyster larvae
and shells, which the group
stuffed into the cages and
dunked into the East River
off the One 15 marina. The
shells, the group said, will
develop into a healthy community
of adult oysters along
the Kings County coast.
Scientists with the organization
also plan on adding to
the oyster nursery over time,
once they receive the proper
permits from the New York
State Department of Environmental
Conservation, according
to a rep with the organization.
“This is a work in progress,”
said Tatiana Castro, a
Billion Oyster Project fi eld
coordinator.
COURIER L 6 IFE, SEPT. 4-10, 2020
While in the water, the
oyster larvae will grow, fi lter
river water, house other
marine life, and serve as an
educational tool for school
groups to teach students
about the city’s waterways.
The larvae will use the remaining
warmer months to
feed while their food is more
abundant, in hopes of becoming
large enough to weather
out the winter.
“The bigger they get before
winter the better chances
they have of surviving,” Castro
said.
Oysters, which were once
bountiful in New York’s waters
before being wiped out
by overharvesting and pollution,
are invaluable for
their fi ltering abilities — as
just one adult oyster can fi lter
up to 50 gallons of water
a day. Together, the sea creatures
bunch into tight packs
and form reefs, which helps
stop beach erosion, protects
against storm surges, and
provides shelter for small
marine animals.
“As they are creating that
reef structure, they provide
a home for other smaller organisms,”
said Castro. “They
are able to protect them from
any predators.”
The Billion Oyster Project,
which is headquartered
on Governors Island, has
planted over 45 Million live
oysters in New York waterways
since its inception six
years ago, including off Sunset
Park’s Bush Terminal
Park, Coney Island Creek,
and elsewhere off Brooklyn
Bridge Park.
The environmentalists say
they don’t yet know how well
the new oysters will do in the
marina, but early signs from
the small cages of oysters
in the area maintained by
school groups that were sent
out in previous years, known
as oyster research stations,
show promising early signs
thusfar.
“Last year we were able to
come out and monitor some of
them and they were still alive,
they were doing well,” Castro
said. “When we were pulling
out those ORS’s we saw a lot of
other marine organisms, we
saw crabs, a lot of plant species.
It just goes to show that
oysters and the structures
that we put them in don’t just
help the oysters but help other
organisms as well.”
Workers prepare to submerge dozens of oysters along the northern
Brooklyn shoreline, which will help stop erosion and fl ooding.
Photo by Ben Verde
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