Two Clam Nurseries Launch
As part of the Long Island Shellfish Restoration Project that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced last September, a two-year effort to raise four million clams in Lake Montauk has launched with the installation of two floating upweller systems at Gurney’s Yacht Club in Montauk.
Last Thursday, representatives of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, Cornell Cooperative Extension, and Gurney’s unveiled the systems, known as FLUPSYs, in which seed clams will grow until they are transported to spawning sanctuaries.
The joint effort in Montauk, part of a $10.4 million state initiative to plant about 190 million shellfish, including seed clams and spat-on-shell oysters, in up to 70 such systems installed in waterways across Long Island, is aimed at restoring areas of marginal water quality. Clams and oysters filter water naturally, with clams able to filter as many as 25 gallons of water per day and oysters double that amount.
“Lake Montauk is an impaired water body, and there are probably at least 100 more impaired water bodies on Long Island,” Laura Tooman, the president of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, said at the unveiling last Thursday at the yacht club.
Chris Pickerell, the Cornell extension’s marine program director, described a FLUPSY as a floating dock containing barrels with mesh in their bottom into which seed clams are introduced, allowing them to grow in open water while protected from predation. “It effectively pulls the surrounding water into the clams,” he said. “The water has the algae that feeds the clams.” The systems, he said, “are basically shellfish producing machines.”
The two FLUPSYs were installed at Gurney’s on July 24. Clams will remain in the lake through the summer and early fall. Once they are approximately the size of a quarter, they will be moved to one of five sanctuary sites on Long Island. The process will be repeated next year.
The initiative was conceived last year, Mr. Pickerell said, when the governor inquired of Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences as to how the state could help in water quality restoration. More shellfish in the water was the response, he said.
Shellfish will be seeded mostly in uncertified waters, or those closed to harvesting, “putting millions of shellfish into a small area so they can spawn but should not be under threat for harvest,” Mr. Pickerell said. Cornell will produce the seed clams at its Southold facility, and C.C.O.M. will maintain the FLUPSYs.
“We’re very happy that we got this opportunity,” said George Filopoulos, the principal owner of Gurney’s Yacht Club. “We’re in the business of renting slips and hosting guests, but if we don’t address issues like water quality we’re not going to be doing this very long.” He said that the yacht club would engage the resort’s boaters and guests as to how they can participate in water quality restoration, as well as children participating in its Gurney’s Kids Club programs.
The installation of the two FLUPSYs is “the first steps of more we want to take,” Mr. Filopoulos said. “We were excited when the clams arrived, and we’ll probably be sad to see them go when they move them off to a sanctuary area.”