NYC Students Restore New York Harbor: the Billion Oyster Project Launches Today Citywide

GOVERNORS ISLAND, NEW YORK CITY, New York (April 30, 2014)

New York Harbor is a natural resource in recovery. Thanks to the efforts of millions of people over the four decades since the implementation of the Clean Water Act, the harbor is now clean enough to serve as a citywide laboratory for marine-focused teaching and learning. Today, the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School (Harbor School) and the New York Harbor Foundation (Harbor Foundation) are launching the Billion Oyster Project (BOP).

The BOP is a long-term, large-scale plan to restore one billion live oysters to New York Harbor over the next twenty years and in the process educate the young people of New York City about the ecology and economy of their local marine environment-- an effort that will radically alter both the city’s waterscape and New Yorkers’ connection to their harbor.

Today, members of the maritime community including fifteen oyster farmers from the East Coast Shellfish Growers Association, representatives of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and others are gathering on Governors Island to celebrate the launch.

Harbor School students and their teachers have been working on marine education for eleven years and marine restoration specifically for seven. Along the way they have achieved many milestones. As part of the Oyster Restoration Research Partnership, students participated in the restoration of seven million oysters on five experimental reefs, and established nurseries at multiple sites around the harbor. And recently, for the first time, Harbor School students demonstrated that the harbor is a viable habitat for this keystone species through its entire life cycle by spawning, rearing and setting a cohort of oysters in New York Harbor water.

Younger New Yorkers have joined in the work as well, through the Billion Oyster Project’s Middle School Oyster Gardening program. For the second year in a row, NOAA’s Office of National Marine Sanctuaries (ONMS) is recognizing this work by designating Harbor School an Ocean Guardian School. The Harbor Foundation is scaling up this outreach, planning to reach one million New York public school students at 500 schools over the next two decades.

The Billion Oyster Project is a Clinton Global Initiative commitment made possible with lead support from Royal Bank of Canada Foundation's Blue Water Project; with support from the 1772 Foundation, Fishers Island Oyster Farm, The J.M. Kaplan Fund, NOAA, the New York Department of State , the Overbrook Foundation, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Verizon, and Virginia’s House of Hope, and in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Earth Matter, Good Shepherd Services, Governors Island Alliance, Hudson River Foundation, Lower East Side Ecology Center, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, New York Aquarium, NY/NJ Baykeeper, NY Oyster Week, SCAPE/Landscape Architects and The River Project.

Why a billion oysters?

Oysters are the keystone species and original ecosystem engineer of the New York Harbor Estuary. Oyster reefs once covered more than 220,000 acres of the estuary and hundreds of miles of shoreline. At this scale, trillions of individual oysters provided massive ecological benefit to the Harbor, including continuous water filtration, wave attenuation, and habitat for thousands of marine species. Oysters were also an abundant food source for the people of our region. After the arrival of Europeans, however, oyster reefs were severely overharvested and eventually destroyed by unchecked pollution and urbanization. Restoring one billion adult oysters to New York Harbor would amount to a small fraction of the original population, but would have significant and measurable positive impacts on our ecosystem. (The Hudson-Raritan Estuary Comprehensive Restoration Plan originally called for creating 500 acres of oyster reefs by 2015 and 5,000 acres by 2050. One billion live oysters would only contribute 50 acres of reefs by 2034, a small fraction of that plan’s goal.)

About the Harbor School

A public high school located on Governors Island, Harbor School offers a college-preparatory education built upon New York City’s maritime experience that instills in students the ethic of environmental stewardship and the skills associated with careers on the water.

About the Harbor Foundation

The New York Harbor Foundation is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that prepares New York City students for careers in marine science and technology through the restoration of New York Harbor. Specifically, the Harbor Foundation funds and manages mission-critical programs for Harbor School students to prepare them for success in college and careers through the restoration of their local marine environment. Through these efforts we cultivate and extend the ethic of maritime stewardship embodied in the Harbor School to the wider community.

To find out more, please visit www.billionoysterproject.org, www.newyorkharborschool.org and www.nyharbor.org.

Contact:Susannah Black, Communications Coordinatorsblack@newyorkharborschool.org 646.678.1955

Murray Fisher, President, New York Harbor Foundationmfisher@nyharbor.org 917.754.5683

Pete Malinowski, Director, Billion Oyster Projectpmalinowski@nyharborschool.org