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Maritz Bay Project wins trustee authorization for planned oyster plantings
Summary
The trustees authorized a letter of permission for the Maritz Bay Project to use specified bay bottoms for oyster planting as part of the group's DEC licensing; project representatives described nursery production, school gardens and monitoring.
Aaron Turchunian, representing the Maritz Bay Project, asked the trustees for a letter of permission to use specified bay-bottom areas the board had previously authorized for oyster planting and described the project’s operations and recent production figures.
Turchunian said the project has two "flupsies" (nursery floats) at the Village of Quogue dock producing about 100,000 oysters a year each and four school-run floating gardens that raise about 10,000 oysters apiece. He told trustees the project produced about 750,000 oysters last year and has produced more than 4,000,000 oysters to date, not counting natural recruitment.
He asked the board to authorize use of the specified planting sites so the group could satisfy a DEC licensing requirement. The trustees read and approved a resolution authorizing the president to sign a letter of permission for the Maritz Bay project.
Turchunian described planting methods, survival-rate variation (some years as high as 85 percent and some as low as 50 percent) and their practice of overwintering some stock in Cornell facilities. Trustees asked about site locations, distance from shore and navigational impacts; Turchunian said plantings would remain near the shore and not extend beyond adjoining docks and that cages float and are buoyed.
Next steps: trustees authorized a president-signed letter of permission; the project will use that to support its DEC license application.
