This is a partial reprint article from 27East.com.
By Elsie Boskamp
Volunteers with the Moriches Bay Project, a nonprofit organization seeking to improve water quality in the local bay, built a fourth oyster farm, composed of 10 oyster cages and 10,000 juvenile oysters, on Saturday morning at the West Hampton Dunes Overlook, on Dune Road in West Hampton Dunes.
Dozens of community members and local families helped make the floating plastic cages, which house 1,000 oysters each, and attached them to ropes, and buoys, in the bay.
The oysters, which were spawned in March at shellfish hatcheries in Southold, will stay in the cages until they are about an inch and a half long. Once they reach adult size, toward the end of the summer, they’ll be relocated to three oyster beds in Moriches Bay to begin filtering and flushing out bacteria in the water.
“One adult oyster filters 50 gallons of water every single day,” the project’s director and co-founder, Laura Fabrizio, said. “We’re trying to make a real dent in improving water quality.”
