An estimated 20 million juvenile oysters will be submerged along the northern shoreline of the Gansevoort Peninsula as part of the Hudson River Park's Trust's habitat enhancement efforts.
These oysters are set on hundreds of submerged structures, known as reef balls, and are meant to bolster the overall health of the Park's 400-acre Estuarine Sancturary by creating an underwater reef-like system.
“Restoring the local oyster population provides important benefits for humans, wildlife and the environment and we are proud to be a local leader in these efforts” said Noreen Doyle, President and CEO of the Hudson River Park Trust.
The new reef balls, fabricated and seeded by the Billion Oyster Project, will provide hard structures where encrusting organisms will settle as well as protective places for local fish populations to hide.
“Billion Oyster Project is excited for another summer fabricating structures, setting reef balls and gabions with oyster larvae, and deploying these structures at Gansevoort Peninsula in collaboration with Hudson River Park Trust and Trevcon Construction,” said Danielle Bissett, Director of Restoration at Billion Oyster Project.
The juvenile oysters deployed through this installation will help create an oyster reef complex and improve underwater habitat for the over 85 fish species that migrate through or reside in the Park’s Sanctuary waters.
These structures will also help protect the Gansevoort Peninsula’s northern shoreline by reducing wave energy and storm surge impacts, which, will in turn, preserve the health of the adjacent salt marsh which will be installed later this season as another part of the Gansevoort project.
This habitat restoration project is key to the ongoing process of converting the Gansevoort Peninsula into a new 5.5-acre park anticipated to open in Spring 2023.
