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Jamaica Bay (Photo: Kathy Willens/Associated Press)
New York City is fortunate to have a thriving wetland inside the city. Visitors who have flown in or out of JFK have seen the huge intertidal salt marsh known as Jamaica Bay which lies along the boder of Brooklyn and Queens. Unfortunately the wetland has been eroding away into the Atlantic Ocean. This is partly because the east coast is a receding coastline and partly because of overdevelopment: there are numerous large sewage treatment facilities around the bay. The City’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has been trying to clean up the bay and prevent the loss of a uniquely beautiful wilderness. To do so they will need allies…little gray faceless allies.
Jamaica Bay is there at the bottom right
Jamaica Bay is still host to 120 species of bird and 48 species of fish, however one particular keystone life form has gone missing. During the last 5 decades the Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) has vanished entirely from Jamaica Bay. The mollusks used to be so plentiful as to be a hindrance to navigation, but they gradually fell victim to overfishing and the pollution caused by 8 million pushy, pushy New Yorkers.
All of this was true until two days ago (October 5, 2010) when the city laid down huge beds of oyster shells and reseeded Jamaica bay with endearing baby oysters. The DEP has spent hundreds of millions of dollars modernizing and improving the water treatment plants around the bay to shrink nitrogen levels and give the oysters a fighting chance.
Artist's Conception of Jamaica Bay at present
Hopefully the young oysters will thrive and again become a backbone of the recovering bay ecosystem. There are terrible perils out there facing the stalwart bivalves. Stressed oysters are susceptible to two horrid diseases known as “Dermo and “MSX“, both virulent pathogens with the names of German industrial bands. If the little mollusks can establish a foothold, filter feeding oysters are an immense boon to water quality. One large adult can clean up to 48 gallons of water in 24 hours. I’m rooting enthusiastically for the new neighbors.
"They never asked to be heroes."
ferrebeekeeper 