Great South Bay Oyster Project
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Recent Progress
Volunteer
Habitat Restoration
Habitat Restoration
We advocate for healing the creeks that feed our bay, for bay-friendly yards, for helping to return a shellfishing industry to the Great South Bay, and for the deployment of modern wastewater treatment technologies to address the problems caused by 500,000 cesspools and septic tanks, as well as the 197 large scale septic systems in malls, apartment complexes and locally.
VolunteerÂ
Lend a hand! Join our Oyster Project Team and help revive The Great South Bay.
Partnering With Oyster Growers
Of course, nothing happens without cleaner water. That is why getting rid of our cesspools and septic tanks, healing our creeks, tackling runoff, and practicing natural lawn care is so important.
Please contact us with any suggestions you may have. You can also donate our efforts. We want to apply the latest techniques in aquaculture to revitalize our bay, our economy and our local culture.
We advocate for healing the creeks that feed our bay, for bay-friendly yards, for helping to return a shell fishing industry to the Great South Bay, and for the deployment of modern wastewater treatment technologies to address the problems caused by 500,000 cesspools and septic tanks, as well as the 197 large scale septic systems in malls, apartment complexes and locally.
Where You Can Get Fresh, Long Island Blue Point Oysters
- Neguntatogue Oysters (Lindenhurst) – call or text Keith & Nicole at 631-275-8046
- Blue Island Oysters (Sayville)- Call Chris at (631) 563-1330 for availability
- Maris Stella Oysters (Captree) – call or text Sixto at 516-939-5545
- Little A’s (Bay Shore) – call or text Michael at 917-526-1900
- Red Tiger (West Islip) – call or text Lou at 646-228-6273
The Making Of An Oyster Sanctuary
Site Evaluation
Establishing the Sanctuary
Enhancing and Measuring for Success
Photo Gallery
Recent Progress On Habitat Restoration
Mapping The Rate of Septic Tank Seepage / Polluted Water Flow On Long Island
Our friends at Peconic Baykeeper are asking the government to start by tackling the biggest and dirtiest septic systems on Long Island.  As it stands, Peconic Baykeeper has filed suit against the NYSDEC for failing to include nitrogen limits in permits as required by the Clean Water Act. When presented with Peconic Baykeeper’s 200-page petition in September, the NYSDEC came back six months later with a half-page note asking for more information on the 1,338 sites. Given the scale of the problem, we need a much greater sense of urgency if we are to save Long Island.
Is Mosquito Spraying Killing Crustaceans?
Nice to see our Peconic Baykeeper, Kevin McCallister being interviewed by News12 on the topic of aerial spraying of larvicide for the control of mosquitoes. Â Kevin relays anecdotal reports that crabbers are bringing up dead crabs after mosquito spraying by the County...
Local Filmmaker Seeks Support for Documentary About Long Island Pollution
Save The Great South Bay wishes Chris Casey all the best in his efforts to fund his film, “Air, Land, Water: The Environmental Challenges Facing Long Island.”
Visit his site at LongIslandPollution.com. It well describes what we are facing. Chris, we all look forward to getting to know you. Stop by at our STGSB Facebook Group Page .
A Water Quality Crisis On Long Island — Brown Tide, Beach Closings; Baykeeper Brings Law Suits Against New York State and The Federal Government
With over 500,000 septic tanks on Long Island, we have a monumental water quality problem on our hands. With a further 180 local small scale sewage treatment plants on Long Island, the problem gets worse. With antiquated large scale treatment facilities further polluting our bays, chief among them The Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant, crippled by Sandy and spewing millions upon millions of gallons of semi-treated sewage into the Western Bays, we have a disaster of monumental proportions on our hands, yet the issue is vastly under reported, and both the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the EPA are failing to address the issue, refusing, it seems, to enforce the laws already on the books, specifically The Clean Water Act.
In Praise of The Stony Brook Southampton Coastal and Estuarine Research Program (SCERP) — “Like” Them on Facebook If You Care About The Fate of The Great South Bay and Every Bay
Knowing now the task at hand, we have no choice but to take it on. To say this problem is too big is to say Long Island has no future. Without clean water, we have no bays, rivers, and ponds worth having. Without clean water, what do we drink, bathe in, or wash with? In the end, it is up to us to act responsibly on the conclusions of SCERP’s research. The very first step we can take in that is to make sure everyone on Long Island is familiar with their work and their conclusions. Tell your family, friends, neighbors, coworkers. We must move from knowledge to awareness to action if we are to preserve Long Island and its waters for future generations. Make no mistake – this problem will cost billions to fix. Eco friendly septic tanks and toilets would need to be deployed throughout Nassau and Suffolk. Sewage treatment plants would need to be modernized and rebuilt. With the total value of Long Island real estate easily in the hundreds of billions of dollars, one would think the infrastructure investment would be worth it.
The Breach Report July 11th — New Inlet Holding Off The Brown Tide, at Least In The Eastern Part of The Great South Bay (via SCERP)
The brown tide bloom in The Great South Bay is massive and its results will be devastating. The New Inlet will mitigate the damage somewhat — we should be happy it wasn’t closed after Sandy! — but the real problem continues to be the 500,000 septic tanks in Nassau and Suffolk. Scientists are now speculating that the Babylon area was hit hard by this brown tide because the flow of polluted groundwater running into the bay was greatest there. While some of Babylon is on sewers, much of Babylon isn’t. After an historically wet June — we had twice the rain we usually did — the ground water, now supersaturated, flowed towards the bay, drawing septic tank water with it. Babylon’s rivers and streams contribute 30% of the ground water pollution into the bay, as measured by nitrogen content, as it is. A month of flooding rains, predictably, exacerbated the problem.