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Ten­ant Spot­light: Bil­lion Oys­ter Project

Jan 9, 2020 2:07 pm

Gov­er­nors Island’s loca­tion in the mid­dle of New York Har­bor makes it the ide­al set­ting for ini­tia­tives that engage with the city’s water­ways and cham­pi­on New York­ers’ rela­tion­ships with their local water­front. That’s one of the rea­sons Gov­er­nors Island is home to the Bil­lion Oys­ter Project (BOP), a non­prof­it ded­i­cat­ed to restor­ing New York’s oys­ter pop­u­la­tion and, in doing so, clean­ing up the water­ways that allow the City’s res­i­dents — of all species — to thrive. 

While Bil­lion Oys­ter Project’s ​‘field sea­son’ runs from April through Octo­ber, the orga­ni­za­tion oper­ates year-round on Gov­er­nors Island in two main offices. Dur­ing warmer months on GI, BOP vol­un­teers pre­pare oys­ter shells for use in man­made reefs, cre­ate new reefs from shells that nur­ture juve­nile oys­ters (which grow, mul­ti­ply, and clean the Har­bor), and per­form water qual­i­ty assess­ments and reef check­ups. In 2019, near­ly 1,000 vol­un­teers com­plet­ed over 4,700 hours of work on BOP projects. Coor­di­nat­ing this remark­able effort requires a huge amount of prepa­ra­tion for the exten­sive line­up of pro­grams dur­ing the field sea­son, which fea­tures 3 – 5 vol­un­teer events in a typ­i­cal week. The off-sea­son months are spent plan­ning for the rest of the year’s projects and explor­ing new meth­ods of grow­ing oys­ters and intro­duc­ing them to the Har­bor. The cur­rent off-sea­son will be BOP’s busiest yet; they’re plan­ning to dou­ble their reef pro­duc­tion in 2020, which means there’s even more prepa­ra­tion to be done this winter. 

Head­quar­ter­ing on Gov­er­nors Island pro­vides BOP with oppor­tu­ni­ties for unique part­ner­ships with oth­er Island-based orga­ni­za­tions. BOP works close­ly with Earth Mat­ter, which oper­ates the Com­post Learn­ing Cen­ter in the Urban Farm, to process emp­ty oys­ter shells recy­cled by Island Oys­ter. After pro­cess­ing by Earth Mat­ter, the shells are cured in BOP’s Shell Cur­ing Site before being used in new reefs. In 2019, Earth Mat­ter deliv­ered over 75,000 lbs of shells to BOP for cur­ing. The Shell Cur­ing Site also col­lects shells from restau­rants across the five bor­oughs, which are all hand-processed by BOP vol­un­teers. To date, over one mil­lion pounds of shells have been cured by BOP on Gov­er­nors Island. 

BOP also works exten­sive­ly with anoth­er Gov­er­nors Island ten­ant, the Urban Assem­bly New York Har­bor School. The Har­bor School, a 550-stu­dent high school, offers a mar­itime voca­tion­al cur­ricu­lum across sev­en areas of spe­cial­ized study, all of which make use of the Har­bor as a class­room. BOP sup­ports these pro­grams by bring­ing in indus­try spe­cial­ists to share their knowl­edge, like BOP staff div­er Zoë Green­berg who leads stu­dents on sci­en­tif­ic dives around the Har­bor. BOP staff mem­bers also help run after-school pro­grams like the Weld­ing Club, Water­front Club, and Aquapon­ics Club. On Fri­days, stu­dents from all sev­en spe­cial­ized tracks meet for BOP’s Har­bor Corps, where they share their cur­rent stud­ies and work togeth­er on ini­tia­tives to sup­port the organization’s mis­sion. Many Har­bor School stu­dents con­tin­ue their involve­ment with BOP out­side the school year through sum­mer internships. 

With a mis­sion to clean New York Har­bor and restore its bio­di­ver­si­ty, where bet­ter for Bil­lion Oys­ter Project to make their home than right in its heart? By locat­ing their head­quar­ters on Gov­er­nors Island, BOP gains valu­able and unique part­ner­ships, space to oper­ate their exten­sive pro­grams, and unpar­al­leled access to the largest sin­gle fea­ture in the City’s vast marine ecosys­tem all year long. With Bil­lion Oys­ter Project’s exper­tise and hard work lead­ing the way, New York Har­bor will be burst­ing with bivalves in no time. 

To learn more about Bil­lion Oys­ter Project, vis­it their web­site, fol­low them on Insta­gram and Twit­ter, or pay them a vis­it when Gov­er­nors Island reopens to the pub­lic this spring.