The document summarizes the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School's oyster restoration and research project. It details the school's history with oyster restoration since 2003, including building floating upweller systems and reefs holding hundreds of thousands of oysters. It describes the school's remote setting process which resulted in over 2 million oysters, and its nursery and growout activities. It also outlines the design of constructed reefs, monitoring techniques, and diving protocols developed to safely deploy and monitor oysters in New York Harbor.

1. The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School

2. Oyster Restoration and
Research Project
The Urban Assembly New York Harbor
School
Advanced Aquaculture Class
Fall 2010

3. Harbor School Loves Oysters

4. Harbor School’s Oyster History
• Harbor School and Baykeeper have been working
together to restore oysters to the Harbor since the
school’s inception
• 2003 Harbor School Students clean and monitor
oyster gardens at The South Street Seaport
Museum.
• 2005: Harbor Corps begins patrolling the city to
work on about 30 different oyster gardens
• 2008 Bart Chezar of the Bay Ridge Flats Oyster
Project starts working with the Harbor School Dive
team on his groundbreaking reef on the Bay Ridge
Flats

5. • 2008: First generation Floating
Upweller System built, 100,000 oysters
on Governors Island
• 2009: The new Eco-dock was in place
on Governors Island holding 500,000
oysters
• 2010: Harbor School joins the Oyster
Restoration and Research Partnership
Harbor School Oyster Work

6. Why Oysters?
• Filtration of water and concentration of
biodeposits.
• Oysters provide habitat for fish (as well as
other vertebrates and invertebrates) in the
benthic zone.
• Stabilizes the benthic and/or intertidal
habitat
• Increases landscape diversity

7. Oysters and our CTE Department
• Oysters, and oyster projects are excellent
platforms for our Career Training classes
• We hope to have all of our CTE classes working
together on this project
• To date Aquaculture, Advanced Vessel
Operations and the Student Scientific Divers
have collaborated in building and monitoring our
reefs
• In the future we hope to include Marine
Engineering’s remote operated vehicles and
Marine Policy’s young writers

8. Oyster Restoration Research
Project
• Project Overview
• Remote Setting
• Nursery/Growout
• Reef Construction
• Monitoring

9. Partners!
Oyster Restoration Research Project Partners include, the
Hudson River Foundation, NY/NJ Baykeeper, US Army
Corps of Engineers, The Urban Assembly New York
Harbor School, The New York Harbor Foundation, The US
Environmental Protection Agency, The Trust for Governors
Island, NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Program, NY City
Department of Parks and Recreation, NY City Department
of Environmental Protection, New York State Department
of Environmental Conservation – Hudson River Program,
Hudson River Park Trust, NOAA Restoration Center, Bart
Chezar (Bay Ridge Flats Oyster Project), Rocking the
Boat.

10. Reef Sites
Dive Sites:
Governors Island, Bay
Ridge Flats and Staten
Island (not shown)
Wading Sites:
Hastings and Soundview
Park

11. Eco-dock, pier 101
Remote Setting and Clam
Shell Storage, Lima Pier

12. Remote Setting Facility on Lima Pier

13. Filter Pump Head Tank Setting Tanks Pier

19. 2mm Spat On Shell
800 Watt heating element
Mesh bag with shell

21. 4mm Spat on Shell

22. Remote Setting Results
• NYHS Performed 2 sets of oyster larvae
• Set 1: 3 million larvae on 30,000 shells
• Set 2: 6 million larvae in 50,000 shells
• Result: 80,000 shells each with an
average of 25 oysters
• 2,000,000 oysters

23. Remote Setting Lessons Learned
1.Cleaner shells will result in a higher
setting rate
2.Better access to our facility would
allow for more control over
conditions in the tanks
3.A Higher quality water supply would
also be beneficial

24. Nursery and Growout

26. Pearl Net
Lantern Net

30. Spat on Shell
Ready for
Deployment

32. Grow out Results
• Approximately 70,000 shells
• Each shell containing between 10 and 20
live oysters
• Oysters ranged in size from 15 to 60mm

33. Growout lessons learned
• Start with fewer oysters in each net
• Reduce handling whenever possible

34. Reef Design

35. Each Reef Consists of…
• 23 cubic yards of rock
• 9 tons of clam shell
• 50,000 oysters on anywhere from 2,500-
5,000 shells

38. US Army Corps of Engineers install
the rock and shell on the Bay Ridge
Flats Reef

40. Harvesting Techniques and Monitoring
• Extract oysters from eco-dock
• Empty oysters into crates and buckets
• Clean oysters
• Count and measure oysters in buckets

41. Distribution
• Oysters travel to reef sites in Harbor School
vessels
• Oysters are distributed on reefs using buckets
and quadrants for reference
• On dive sites, Bay Ridge Flats, Governors Island
and Staten Island distribution is carried out by
SCUBA teams
• Wading sites Aquaculture students and
volunteers do the distribution being very careful
not to step on the oysters

42. Harvesting and Spat on Shell Deployment

43. Diving Safely in New York
Harbor
• SCUBA instructors Joe Gessert and Liv
Dillon organized a Dive control Board
made up of commercial divers
• This led to new protocols including full
face masks, tethered dives, and safety
divers ready at all times
• Currently Harbor School is in the process
of becoming a scientific diver training
facility

44. • This project would not have been possible
without the dedication of our divers
• Students and teachers routinely arrived on
Governors Island hours before school,
often while it was still dark
• Despite air temperatures below 40° and
water temperatures below 50° all 250,000
oysters are down

45. Buckets as Standard