Jamaica Bay (Not World)
To Be CUNY's Oyster

Oysters harvested from Jamaica Bay on the dinner plates of New Yorkers will become a reality if all goes as planned by a recently established consortium of Kingsborough Community College, Brooklyn College and the U.S. National Park Service's Gateway National Recreation Area.

Oysters played an important role in the local economy from time when the Bay was harvested by Canarsee Native Americans up until the 1920s. By then the combination of water pollution and over-farming brought oystermen permanently into port. The goal of the project is to restore oyster beds to pre-20th-century levels. Researchers from KCC's Department of Biological Sciences and Brooklyn Collegeôs Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center (AREAC) will be placing dozens of cages with oyster seedlings throughout Jamaica Bay.

Afterward, they will monitor seedling growth, water and air temperatures, oxygen levels, and the effects of existing pollution on the oysters. On November 16 the project (one of several designed to reintroduce vanished sea life back to Jamaica Bay) was launched, appropriately enough, at a Fort Tilden pier at the Breezy Point section of National Gateway Park.