New York Harbor School Billion Oyster Project RESTORE AMERICAS ESTUARIES Peter Malinowski Chief Oyster Officer New York Harbor School
A Billion Oysters? – Like “Million Trees NYC” – Measurable, tangible goal – Modest goal given historic reefs and
Waterbird Islands
Enclosed & Confined Waters Tributary Connections Stream Corridors
Comprehensive Public Coastal Restoration Plan goals Access Eelgrass Wetlands
Beds
Habitat for Fish, Crabs, and Lobsters
Oyster Reefs
Sediment Quality
Shorelines and Shallows
Maritime Forests
Contaminated Resource Lost Connection Over 400 CSO pipes
Harbor School
Harbor School CTE Programs
Existing Facilities plus 600 Miles of Waterfront
100,000,000 Oyster Shells Discarded Annually
1,100,000 Public School Students
Partners
The New York Harbor Foundation
Marine Science and Technology Center MAST CENTER
Governors Island facilities Eco-dock and future MAST Center
Harbor School building
Governors Island oyster reef
‌.and more facilities at the Brooklyn Navy Yard
Harbor School Home Port
Wallabout Basin Oyster Nursery
Water Retention
Larval Retention
Comprehensive Restoration It IS intended to: Plan
• Provide a shared vision of a restored estuary • Serve as a Blueprint and regional master plan for future restoration • Coordinate and align regional restoration activities • Adopted by the NY/NJ Harbor Estuary Plan • Serve as living document actively managed to track progress
Target Ecosystem Characteristics
[What] [Where]
[How Much] [By When]
Revised Plan Governors Island Restoration
Possible Plan for Governors Island • ~ 3 acres of tidal wetlands • Floating wetlands in eco-dock area for habitat and wave • • • •
attenuation ~ 160 acres of oyster reefs (adding to new rock revetment) Enhance shallow water habitat along ~1200 linear feet of existing sandy shoreline and possible terraced tidal flat ~ 160 acres complex subtidal habitat for fish/crabs/lobster Implement experimental restoration techniques
Unique USACE/NY Harbor School Partnership • Harbor School students would provide: – baseline data for existing conditions (water quality, biological surveys, etc) – oyster spat for initial population of oyster reefs, reseeding (if necessary) and maintenance – Long-term Post construction monitoring – Program/sampling integrated into school’s curriculum
Middle School Oyster Gardeners
Breeding Colonies Data Outreach Engagement Recruitment
Oyster Gardening Wiki
DATA COLLECTION
Below- examples of the oyster life cycle
Our Curriculum: Six Career and Technical Education Programs Marine Science •Aquaculture •Marine Biology Research
Marine Technology • Marine Systems Tech • Ocean Engineering • Scientific Diving • Vessel Operations
Our Curriculum: An integrated Program
We need •Writers to write permit applications and report on our progress •Mathematicians to perform the statistical analyses on our data sets •Scientists to conduct research and collect data •Historians to research historic oyster distributions •Artists to design our press materials to convey our message to the public