Our Mission

The Moriches Bay Project is a small grassroots not-for-profit 501c3 project with a big heart and a lot of determination.

Our mission is to improve the quality of the water in Moriches Bay and turn it back to its natural state of health. We do this through oyster farming. We are dedicated to bringing awareness to the local community and educating our children.

Since being established in 2012 by longtime residents and friends Aram Terchunian and Laura Fabrizio and Westhampton native Dwight Surgan, MBP has been planting oysters in Moriches Bay. They have done this through partnerships with Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Southampton Town Trustees, and Brookhaven Town.

Our goal is to continue to double the number of oysters each year. One oyster filters up to 50 gallons of water per day!

We all live, work, or play on the Bay and we all have a responsibility to care for it.

Our Accomplishments

In 2012, the Moriches Bay Project put 50,000 oysters in the Bay, created 2 oyster farms, holding up to 5,000 oysters each and established the first oyster bed in Moriches Bay.

In 2017, with the generous support of local businesses and sponsors such as LICF, the Moriches Bay Project made many important accomplishments. Specifically, we put more than 400,000 oysters in the bay, filtering 21.5 million gallons of water each day. We removed 478 pounds of nitrogen from the bay, engaged 4,696 people in helping to improve water quality in the bay, and installed the first solar F.L.U.P.S.Y. to date, in Moriches Bay.

In nine short years, we have raised and seeded over 2.5 million oysters into Moriches Bay. These oysters serve as the keystone species, forming new habitats and actively filtering the bay. Each oyster filters 50 gallons of water per day and is filtering billions of gallons of water each day.