NYCkayaker Has Anyone Seen Any Oysters?

Tue Jun 26 11:24:32 EDT 2007

Hi,
You might be interested in an oyster initiative that we're launching in College Point, Queens on Sunday, July 1. The press release is pasted below; all are welcome.
Best,
Kathryn

For Immediate Release
Contact: Kathryn Cervino at 917.612.0235 or katwini at earthlink.net

New York City’s First Pilot Project to Grow Solar-Powered Oyster Reefs to be launched on Sunday, July 1 on Queens Waterfront

Oysters to be affixed to series of sculptures depicting double-helix DNA in the act of replication by Brooklyn artist Mara Haseltine and being installed at MacNeil Park in College Point, Northeast Queens

NEW YORK CITY, June 25 -- A team of marine biologists is embarking on an innovative and optimistic project to literally jump-start the city's oyster population and will launch the pilot project–which combines art and science--on Sunday, July 1, at 5:30 p.m. at MacNeil Park in College Point, Queens.
Pace University professor and Marine Pathologist Dr. James M. Cervino is spearheading the project, teaming with Brooklyn-based sculptor Mara Haseltine, Global Coral Reef Alliance President Dr. Thomas J. Goreau and Columbia University graduate student Kaitlin Baird.
"This will be like a mini-water treatment plant, only operated by nature," said Cervino, who is also President of the non-profit Coastal Preservation Network, an organization dedicated to cleaning and protecting the health of the Queens coastline. "Oysters filter and clean the seawater, and our project should allow for oysters to flourish in quantities that New York City hasn’t seen in many decades."
The project will employ a mineral accretion process known as Biorock, which uses low voltage, direct-current electricity to grow solid limestone underwater. The electrical current causes minerals that are naturally dissolved in seawater to precipitate and adhere to a metal structure, and the resulting limestone has a strength similar to that of concrete.
Biorock is a patented process co-designed by Goreau that has been used in coastal areas all over the world to replenish coral reefs and accelerate their growth, giving them extra energy that allows them to survive in conditions that would otherwise kill them. This technology has also been successfully applied to growing limestone breakwaters to protect islands and coastal areas from erosion and rising sea levels. At MacNeil Park, Biorock will be used to accelerate the growth of oysters.   
On Sunday, seedling oysters will be affixed to two double-helix-shaped metal sculptures created by Haseltine in her Brooklyn studio. The sculptures will be mounted to old pilings that stand in the waters off the northeast shoreline of MacNeil Park. Interestingly, the pilings once supported the dock for a ferry that ran between College Point and the Bronx but ceased operation after the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge was built in 1939.
Haseltine said the double-helix shapes will bring both aesthetic beauty and optimal functionality to the project, and will double as teaching tools. Entitled "Transcriptease," the sculptures depict DNA in the act of replication. One sculpture is a fully formed DNA helix, and the other depicts the DNA in the act of unraveling into the two separate strands of messenger RNA (mRNA).
"To create the ultimate shape for oysters to grow on I turned to Mother Nature as my muse," said Haseltine, whose science-inspired sculptures stand throughout the world. "The double helix shape is perfect because it allows for water to flow freely around it, thus allowing oysters to receive the maximum amount of nutrients.  In a typical oyster midden the oysters pile on top of each other so the ones on the bottom literally starve."
Oysters filter up to 25 gallons of water a day and act as natural filtration systems, providing a significant step toward a cleaner waterfront, Goreau said. Oysters once inhabited more than 350 square miles of water around the city, but have been nearly wiped out by pollution and over-harvesting in the last century. 
In the College Point project, the goal is for oysters to grow at faster rates and to multiply, cleaning the waters and attracting further biodiversity in this previously polluted and distressed area, Cervino said. If the project is successful, Cervino and Goreau plan to replicate it at other locations around the city in hopes of reigniting biodiversity in waters where it has long languished. Previous attempts at bolstering the oyster population in city waters using more traditional methods, including an expansive project at the Statue of Liberty in 2003, have seen only limited success.
Cervino, a College Point native, said adding aesthetic value, particularly in the form of a double helix, will enable the team to use the project as an effective teaching tool for students from local elementary schools, high schools, and colleges, who will be encouraged to visit the site. Haseltine’s artwork is visually compelling and makes complex scientific concepts more accessible to the masses. Her largest sculpture to date, the 84-foot-long “Waltz of the Polypeptides,” depicts a sub-cellular organelle called a ribosome creating a protein.  The sculpture was donated last October to the Cold Spring Harbor Campus in Long Island, the international science mecca founded by Chancellor Dr. James Watson, co-discoverer of the double helix.  This work is Haseltine’s first in a series of environmental works she calls ‘living sculptures,’ which she hopes will help heal the planet.
“This project is incredibly unique and will provide a rich learning experience on several levels for students and adults alike,” Cervino said. “We look forward to a flourishing oyster population in College Point and to providing people with the opportunity to witness something that hasn’t taken place anywhere else in New York City.”
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-----Original Message-----
>From: TomBrooklyn <tombrook11232 at yahoo.com>
>Sent: Jun 26, 2007 3:30 AM
>To: nyckayaker at rockandwater.net
>Subject: NYCkayaker Has Anyone Seen Any Oysters?
>
>Has anyone seen any oysters anywhere in the NY/NJ Estuary?   (Sandy Hook to Ossinging, NY
>including all adjacent rivers and bays.) Areas to look for them, particularly at low tide, are on
>shoals with hard or rough surfaces.   
>
>The NY/NJ Baykeeper organization,  wwww.baykeeper.org ,  who operate an oyster restoration
>program, is interested in learning about the location of any live, tough oysters that have
>survived the almost total devastation that was complete by 1920 due to gross overharvesting,
>pollution and disease.    
>
>See http://www.nynjbaykeeper.org/pdffiles/bkoppdoc.pdf  Page 8, Paragraph 2.   
>
>They can use that information to help determine locations where oyster restoration efforts might
>be particularly productive.     
>
>An adult oyster filters about 30 gallons of water/day.   If a substantial amount of oysters were
>reestablished in the local waters, they could have a tremendous positive impact on the water
>clarity and cleanliness.    It would of course, be inadvisable to eat them.   At least for a
>pretty long time.   Oysters also provide a primary ecological foundation for spawning fish and a
>host of other marine life, and they can help prevent erosion along marshland land border areas
>like a lot of Jamaica Bay.
>
>Please report any sightings to them, or if you prefer, to me; and I will pass the information
>along.  
>
>
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Kathryn Winiarski
katwini at earthlink.net