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The Great Beds are Coming Back Baykeeper and Partners Begin Restoration of Largest Oyster Bed in Harbor

Keyport, NJ April 25, 2007: In what is certainly the most ambitious in-water habitat restoration project in New York - New Jersey Harbor Estuary history, NY/NJ Baykeeper and its partners are launching a nearly $1 million restoration of a portion of the Great Beds Oyster Reef in Western Raritan Bay. Until those beds were fouled by pollution and destroyed in the 1920’s, they were the largest in the region, among the most productive on the eastern seaboard of the United States, and famed for their phenomenal oyster yield.

"This is cutting edge science, the restoration of an unseen, underwater ecosystem, in a heavily urbanized area," says Dr. Beth Ravit Director of the Rutgers Environmental Research Clinic, who will be overseeing research for the restoration. "If this project is successful, it could be a model for benthic habitat restoration for the entire New York - New Jersey Harbor Estuary. That is incredibly exciting."

The $1 million in funding for the oyster restoration project will be provided under a civil settlement between Chevron U.S.A., Inc. and the New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety. The settlement arose from a February 2006 oil spill in the Arthur Kill, the strait separating Staten Island from New Jersey.

Conservation Resources Inc., a non-profit conservation finance intermediary organization which specializes in managing and disbursing settlement funds, will receive the restoration contribution from Chevron, and manage the funding on NY/NJ Baykeeper’s behalf. "We are delighted to be involved with this important restoration effort," said Michael Catania, President of Conservation Resources, who also noted that "this exemplary project represents an opportunity to restore a critical urban ecosystem in the midst of the most densely populated state in the nation."

Baykeeper, Rutgers University, the Gaia Institute, other academic institutions, and state and federal partners will begin the restoration this year by conducting an intensive study of the Great Beds site, followed by the construction of an oyster reef. "During the first year we will gather baseline data, determine the optimum location for the reef, and decide the best approaches to constructing it," explains Baykeeper Oyster Program Manager Meredith Comi. "The second year we will establish the pilot reef, which will be intensely studied and monitored as well. If successful, this single project could grow into a huge harbor-wide benthic habitat restoration program."

Coming on the heels of successful oyster restorations in Chesapeake Bay, Louisiana and Texas, scientists say that the clean up of Hudson-Raritan Estuary waters over recent decades makes this the right time to attempt a large-scale restoration of the Great Beds.

"As big as this project will be, it will restore only a fraction of the original Great Beds reef. At its height, that reef ran for five miles along the shore from South Amboy to Keyport," says NY/NJ Baykeeper Andy Willner, "It is, by far, the biggest benthic restoration project done by anyone in the harbor. And it could be the breakthrough restoration project for the Estuary."

Baykeeper and its volunteers pioneered oyster restoration in the Hudson-Raritan Estuary. They’ve been doing small-scale oyster restorations there since 1999, creating a self-reproducing half-acre oyster reef on the Navesink River, and constructing other reefs at Keyport and Liberty Island. This year Baykeeper will be starting research on the feasibility of doing a project on the Hackensack River. "The Great Beds project is the logical outcome of our pioneer work in oyster restoration," concludes Willner. "If this effort succeeds, it will no longer be possible for anyone to argue that large scale public works-style benthic habitat restoration projects are not feasible."

Oysters are a keystone species, and their restoration in large numbers could help to further clean up NY/NJ Harbor Estuary waters. The restoration of oysters could also bring about a restoration of eelgrass, and provide forage and habitat and nurseries for numerous commercial and recreational fish species. Oyster reefs provide wave attenuation, and help to blunt storm surges.

"Oysters are also prodigious water filterers – with a single adult oyster able to filter up to 50 gallons of water per day. If restored throughout the estuary, these tiny mollusks could reduce the nuisance algae blooms that occur as a result of nitrogen pollution. Not only that," says Willner, "Oysters improve water clarity, which helps eelgrass grow. Intertidal underwater grasses can sequester carbon, a capability that could become important in light of a recent finding that New York City produces one percent of all U.S. carbon emissions. No matter how you look at it, the Great Beds oyster project will be a major step forward in the restoration of the Hudson-Raritan Estuary," he continued.

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