1. The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School

2. Oyster Restoration and Research Project
The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School
Advanced Aquaculture Class
Fall 2010

3. Harbor School Loves Oysters

4. Harbor School’s Oyster History
Harbor School and Baykeeper have been working together to restore oysters to the Harbor since the school’s inception
2003 Harbor School Students clean and monitor oyster gardens at pier 40.
2004: Harbor Corps begins patrolling the city to work on about 30 different oyster gardens
2007 Bart Chezar of the Bay Ridge Flats Oyster Project starts working with the Harbor School Dive team on his groundbreaking reef on the Bay Ridge Flats

5. Harbor School Oyster Work
2008: First generation Floating Upweller System built, 100,000 oysters on Governors Island
2009: The new Eco-dock was in place on Governors Island holding 500,000 oysters
2010: Harbor School joins the Oyster Restoration and Research Partnership

6. Why Oysters?

7. Oysters and our CTE Department
Oysters, and oyster projects are excellent platforms for our Career Training classes
We hope to have all of our CTE classes working together on this project
To date Aquaculture, Advanced Vessel Operations and the Student Scientific Divers have collaborated in building and monitoring our reefs
In the future we hope to include Marine Engineering’s remote operated vehicles and Marine Policy’s young writers

8. Oyster Restoration Research Project
Project Overview
Remote Setting
Nursery/Growout
Reef Construction
Monitoring

9. Partners!
Oyster Restoration Research Project Partners include, the Hudson River Foundation, NY/NJ Baykeeper, US Army Corps of Engineers, The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, The New York Harbor Foundation, The US Environmental Protection Agency, The Trust for Governors Island, NY-NJ Harbor Estuary Program, NY City Department of Parks and Recreation, NY City Department of Environmental Protection, New York State Department of Environmental Conservation – Hudson River Program, Hudson River Park Trust, NOAA Restoration Center, Bart Chezar (Bay Ridge Flats Oyster Project), Rocking the Boat.

10. Reef Sites
Dive Sites:
Governors Island, Bay Ridge Flats and Staten Island (not shown)
Wading Sites:
Hastings and Soundview Park

11. Eco-dock, pier 101
Remote Setting and Clam
Shell Storage, Lima Pier

12. Remote Setting Facility on Lima Pier

13. Filter Pump Head Tank Setting Tanks Pier

19. 800 Watt heating element
2mm Spat On Shell
Mesh bag with shell

21. 4mm Spat on Shell

22. Remote Setting Results

23. Remote Setting Lessons Learned Things we can do better

24. Nursery and Growout

26. Pearl Net
Lantern Net

30. Spat on Shell Ready for Deployment

32. Growout lessons learned

33. Reef Design

36. US Army Corps of Engineers install the rock and shell on the Bay Ridge Flats Reef

38. Harvesting Techniques and Monitoring

39. Oyster distribut

40. Harvesting and Spat on Shell Deployment

41. Diving Safely in New York Harbor
SCUBA instructors Joe Gessert and Liv Dillon organized a Dive control Board made up of commercial divers
This led to new protocols including full face masks, tethered dives, and safety divers ready at all times
Currently Harbor School is in the process of becoming a scientific diver training facility

42. This project would not have been possible without the dedication of our divers
Students and teachers routinely arrived on Governors Island hours before school, often while it was still dark
Despite air temperatures below 40° and water temperatures below 50° all 250,000 oysters are down

43. Buckets as Standard