County Will Lease Peconic Bay for Shellfishing

By Debbie Tuma

In an effort to restore shellfish, provide jobs and clean up the bays, Suffolk County is looking at leasing 300 acres in the Peconic Estuary System - which runs in the bay from the Peconic River to Block Island Sound - to private baymen over the next five years.

Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman, who was recently appointed to the Suffolk Aquaculture Board, said this initial effort would give five-acre leases to 12 licensed individuals, so they could plant oysters in 60 acres a year for the next five years, totaling 300 acres.

"It's hard enough to survive today as a bayman, and this program would help provide a steady stream of income for them, as well as restore the many shellfish that were wiped out by the mysterious brown tide of the mid-1980s," said Schneiderman.

He said this "miniscule effort" is part of a larger effort by Suffolk County to restore shellfish in up to 100,000 acres of state-owned bottomlands in Peconic and Gardiner's Bays. The County started developing an Aquaculture Leasing Program in 2005 after it was enacted in 2004.

Schneiderman said the proposed 300 acres he hopes to lease out are located between Southold and Riverhead, all the way to Napeague Harbor in East Hampton. He said the State gave the County authority to lease the bottomlands for aquaculture purposes.

Bill Pell, a longtime bayman and owner of Southampton Oyster Company, said oysters also clean out and filter the waters of the bays.

"An average oyster filters 18 gallons of water in 24 hours," said Pell, who is currently growing and harvesting his own oysters in Southampton Town. "I think this County leasing program is worthwhile, because it opens up work for other baymen, boat builders and all kinds of jobs in the marine business."

He said that for years, oysters were overfished and not replenished, so this is a good idea. He also said that oysters are easy to sell and "the return is tremendous."

Pell, who claims the Peconic Bay oysters are the "best tasting on the East Coast," said they take about 18 months to two years to grow once seeded.

John Aldred, Director of the East Hampton Town Shellfish Hatchery in Montauk, said he thinks the 300 acres is a "reasonable way to start this leasing program, to see how it works, and then at the end of five years, it can be reviewed and modified."

Suffolk County Executive Director Steve Levy said, "The crux of this program is to eventually allow for 100,000 acres of our County's bottomlands to be available for the cultivation of shellfish. This innovative leasing program to the private sector baymen will encourage them to have both work and to restore our shellfish population."

He also said several years ago he helped to reseed one to two million scallops in Peconic Bay and a million clams in Great South Bay. At that time, he wanted to make this program a model for the nation, so this new leasing program is a continuation of this idea of replenishing the bays.

He said the Suffolk County Planning Department, which oversees this program, is now going through an environmental review process to work out the lease arrangements and should be underway by 2010 or sooner. The state owns the underwater lands and gave the County authority to lease the bottomlands for this aquaculture project. The State Department of Environmental Conservation and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are also involved in the permit process. The Suffolk Planning Department is taking the lead and has created the Aquaculture Lease Program Advisory Commission to oversee this process.

At the end of the five-year lease of the 300 acres, the County will review this project and it could then be modified or changed.

Carrie Gallagher, Suffolk County Commissioner of Environment and Energy, said, "Our goal is also to help protect this historic way of life on Long Island, when shell fishing was a prosperous way of life and very plentiful here. It was hurt during the past two decades, but we hope to bring it back."

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