Seaweed Cultivation a Go

Cultivation of edible seaweed is coming to Gardiner’s and Peconic Bays.

Last week, the New York State Assembly and Senate passed legislation authorizing Suffolk County to allow bottomlands in those bays to be used for a pilot program to research and assess the feasibility of cultivating seaweed. Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle sponsored the legislation, which will be delivered to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo for his signature.

The state has already ceded 110,000 acres of bottomland to the county for the purpose of shellfish cultivation, authorizing it to develop a leasing program to provide shellfish growers access to the waters in an environmentally sustainable way. The Suffolk County Shellfish Aquaculture Lease Program was adopted in 2009 and its implementation is under way.

Seaweed cultivation in neighboring states, including Connecticut and Maine, has demonstrated a viable market product, one that has the dual benefit of being a nutrient sink, removing excess nitrogen from estuarine waters.

“We were approached by those that have leases for shellfish already, for the same land, and saw a potential economic benefit,” Mr. Thiele said on Tuesday. “Because other states are doing this, we got a request for not just shellfishing but seaweed. Particularly, I think where there’s a commercial market is sugar kelp,” or saccharina latissima, which is high in iodine, protein, and calcium. “It’s probably great in a salad,” Mr. Thiele joked, “but as far as a food product, there is a commercial use.”

Initially, the project is limited to five leases of one acre each, Mr. Thiele said. “This is a pilot project to ‘put our toe in the water’ and see if there is any potential here.”