Oysters are ‘Roomba of the sea’

On Saturday, Aug. the Friends of Bellport Bay planted over 100,000 oysters into the Town of Brookhaven's Bellport Bay sanctuary, which is also cared for by the FoBB.

According to co-founder and director of water operations Thomas Schultz, the oysters were “nurtured and grown under private docks along the Bellport Bay shoreline.”

The process began at the beach west of Bellport Marina’s main dock, with all 100,000 oysters aboard a boat.

“Just to the west of us in Blue Point—Blue Point oysters?—is where millions of oysters were harvested, and died out. So now we’ve come to save them, not from the west but from the east in Bellport,” said Suffolk County executive Ed Romaine. “So let’s preserve some of this bay from overharvesting, which happened in the past. Let’s clean up this bay!”

“Oysters do it naturally for free; they don’t cost the taxpayers,” said Schultz jokingly.

Picking up an oyster that had been planted over eight years ago, Schultz said, “This adult oyster can filter 50 gallons a day.”

“It’s the Roomba of the sea,” quipped Bellport Village mayor Maureen Veitch.

The FoBB’s mission is “to improve the water quality of Bellport Bay and the Great South Bay. Our primary activity is Operation Ecosystem Restoration (“OER”), which brings the community together and improves water quality, creates habitat and protects shoreline through a sustainable solution: shellfish restoration.” 

The FoBB members have been implementing OER since the founding of their organization in 2015 and in the past 11 years have sustainably planted over six million shellfish.

Due to an adult oyster's ability to filter up to 50 gallons of water per day, FoBB estimates that 300 million gallons of bay water are filtered per day.

“Our fundraising pays for equipment, water operations, scientific evaluation, and educational programs. We are proud to allocate over 85 percent of our budget directly towards our on-water programs. We partner with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County (CCESC) for scientific evaluation, and with Brookhaven Town for a Marine Protected Area,” said the FoBB in a statement.

In addition to the direct work of growing and planting shellfish, the FoBB provides community educational seminars on shellfish restoration and nitrogen pollution mitigation. 

“Our initiatives benefit all of Suffolk County. Our success contributes to clean recreational use of the bay by approximately 1 million people—enabling safe usage for swimming, sailing, snorkeling, paddleboarding, and fishing,” said the FoBB.