High school students are using SonTek and other Xylem instruments to revive New York Harbor’s native oyster species – not for food or pearls, but to make the water cleaner and healthier.
Oysters have been called “ecological engineers” because they grow on top of one another to create a coral reef-like structure that fish can use as food and shelter. The floor of the New York Harbor – which wraps around New York City – was once covered by oyster reefs, but industrial activity, shipping, dredging and overfishing acted like a wrecking ball that tore through this underwater architecture and wiped out the entire oyster population by the early 1900s.
Sound ecological practices during the past few decades have revived the harbor water. It’s now healthy enough to sustain oysters, and
New York Harbor School students are growing tens of millions of oysters each year in their aquaculture hatchery, replanting them in the harbor and then monitoring these artificially created reefs to ensure they are growing as expected.
Oysters have been called “ecological engineers” because they grow on top of one another to create a coral reef-like structure that fish can use as food and shelter. The floor of the New York Harbor – which wraps around New York City – was once covered by oyster reefs, but industrial activity, shipping, dredging and overfishing acted like a wrecking ball that tore through this underwater architecture and wiped out the entire oyster population by the early 1900s.
Sound ecological practices during the past few decades have revived the harbor water. It’s now healthy enough to sustain oysters, and
New York Harbor School students are growing tens of millions of oysters each year in their aquaculture hatchery, replanting them in the harbor and then monitoring these artificially created reefs to ensure they are growing as expected.
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