It’s hard to imagine today – but New York once held the title of the world’s oyster capital. When the British navigator Henry Hudson came into the waters off today’s metropolis in 1609, the oyster beds covered more than 890 square kilometers. To put it into perspective: That corresponds to the area of the city of Berlin.
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“You didn’t have to go far into shallow water to pick oysters like ripe fruit,” writes author Mark Kurlansky in his book “The Big Oyster: History on the Half Shell” about the saltwater specialty. But by the early 20th century, New Yorkers had all eaten oysters.
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Manhattan grew in width and height, and the swampy, stony banks in the tidal waters – ideal homes for oysters – were displaced by bulkheads and piers. In addition, tons of wastewater and chemicals were discharged into the waters. Only with a comprehensive law to keep water clean from 1972 did the turning point slowly come.
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Since then, the question has been raised: Can the harvested crops recover and, thanks to their high filter performance, maybe even help to improve the water quality? After all, each and every one of the mussels lets around 240 liters of water flow through their bodies every day in order to obtain usable nutrients. Other mussels also work in this way as filters – but this also ensures that waste materials such as microplastics accumulate in them.
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28 million oysters already in the water
The “Billion Oyster Project“recycles 3.6 tons of oyster shells from around 80 restaurants in New York every week and transforms them into breeding grounds for oyster larvae. In so-called harbor laboratories, germ cells are first fertilized in water tanks. The larvae that are created are supplied with algae cultures and after two to three weeks placed in tanks to the restaurant bowls.
This so-called docking succeeds in ten to 40 percent of the larvae, which then transform into oysters. In floating cages and later on newly built reefs and grids, they eventually continue to grow. The oysters farmed in this way are not edible, however, as the water in the harbor is too polluted for that.
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Schoolchildren – the public schools include the non-profit project in their lessons – and volunteers have already brought 28 million oysters into the water in five years since the project began. What sounds like a lot is just the beginning for Director Pete Malinowski. The goal is one billion oysters, so just 2.8 percent have been achieved. A billion oysters would clean the stagnant water in the port once every three days, says Malinowski. At least if you don’t include the inflow and outflow from or into the Atlantic.
But the organizers of the project are interested in more than that, namely a stronger connection between the residents and the port and living space. “Most New Yorkers live within walking distance of the water, most streets end on the water, but New Yorkers do not see themselves as residents of a port city or an important natural system,” says Malinowski.
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