Shells from Long Island oyster festival saved to build shellfish habitat in Oyster Bay waters
OYSTER BAY, N.Y. -- Long Island's oyster festival returned over the weekend for the first time in three years, drawing hundreds of thousands of people.
Now, those buckets of discarded shells are be repurposed to help restore ocean waters that were once brimming with oysters, CBS2's Carolyn Gusoff reported Monday.
While some things got carted off or thrown away after a successful oyster festival, more than 3 tons of oyster shells will stay in Oyster Bay, where the oyster population has precipitously declined.
The town was once famous for its oysters. But the supply is so low now that the festival got very few of its 60,000 oysters locally this year.
The decline is due to recent storms, nitrogen pollution, possible overharvesting and legal battles closing a hatchery.
The town is now building it back with its own hatchery. Twenty million oysters and clam seeds are grown and planted each year.
Oyster Bay Town Supervisor Joe Saladino, also a fisherman, explained why shells can help too.
"Clusters of them create like a little artificial reef," said Saladino. "They offer great protection from weather conditions and they also defend growing shellfish from predators."
The festival crowds were told to chuck their shucked shells in buckets, and now truckloads of shells will create new shellfish habitats.
"Using nature to help nature," said Heather Johnson from Friends of the Bay. "They have to be sort of cured for year, so they're not just put right into the water. But the shells serve as habitat."
"It's part of our name and we want to make that this bay in Oyster Bay is plentiful," said Saladino.
Oysters also clean these waters. Each one filters 50 gallons of sea water per day.
The festival raises money for local charity and now has a secondary benefit.
"People would finish their oysters, hand it over to the people from the town and they loved the fact that nothing was going to waste," said Kerry Gillick-Goldberg, an oyster festival spokesperson.
The goal is for Oyster Bay and its famous festival to one day be filled with oysters from its own waters.
