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From the
Times Ledger:
Officers of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation were deployed to Little Neck Bay on the evening of May 30. Their investigation led to one arrest for harvesting shellfish in uncertified waters.
The Economic Conservation Officers seized harvesting tools, buckets and bags, as well as six bushels containing about 1,100 oysters that were eventually returned to the bay, the DEC said.
Officers charged one male suspect with misdemeanor illegal commercialization and placing rakes in uncertified waters, as well as harvesting shellfish in uncertified waters, according to the department’s office of media relations. The office would not release the offender’s name.
From the
Gotham Gazette:
The largest urban wildlife preserve in the United States sits adjacent to Kennedy Airport, near the high-rise apartments of Starrett City and the Rockaway housing projects. Home to the peregrine falcon, the loggerhead sea turtle, the short-eared owl, the area -- Jamaica Bay -- at the intersection of Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island, serves as a stopover for 20 percent of American bird species on their annual migration along the East Coast.
For years, though, this estuary, a shallow marsh where fresh and saltwater meet, has been vanishing into the toxic waters of the New York City harbor, losing an estimated 33 acres annually to deterioration, nitrogen buildup and rising sea levels. Spanning some 16,000 acres about a century ago, the salt march islands have shrunk to a mere 800 acres. Thought not nearly as dramatic as the environmental catastrophe now confronting the Louisiana coast, the threat to Jamaica Bay could completely destroy the marsh by 2024, decimating the home for an abundance of rare and endangered plants and animals.
Now, the federal state and city governments, prodded by citizen's groups, have stepped up their efforts to preserve the area. This year, government and private groups collaborated to update the Jamaica Bay Watershed Protection Plan to try to avert disaster in the urban refuge. Whether government will keep its commitment and whether its actions can reverse the decades of deterioration remains to be seen.
Oyster gardening is still in the beginnings stages of a two-year experiment that will determine whether they will benefit the bay's condition. The next several years will be critical to see if the oysters can once again thrive in the estuary as part of a recovering environment and if the marshes can once again shelter and nourish an authentic mix of native New Yorkers.
From the
Daily News:
It's been a long time since oysters called Jamaica Bay home.
Pollution, overharvesting and other woes wiped out what was once a healthy population of the bivalves.
But a new study is showing that oysters may be able to return and even help clean up Jamaica Bay.
Researchers have been able to grow oysters in certain test areas. And now they are trying to find out if there is any natural oyster larvae flowing into the waterway.
Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Queens, Brooklyn) pointed out that tons of treated wastewater is dumped in the bay, making it tough for anything to survive.
"Oysters are a natural filter," Weiner said during a news conference at Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field with researchers who are conducting the study. "This could help us deal with that problem. We don't want this waterway to go the way of the Gowanus Canal."
Prof. Jeffrey Levinton of SUNY Stony Brook, who is overseeing the study, said it's a good sign that he was able to grow oysters in parts of the bay.
