Oceanic Architects: Unexpected Oysters Shape The New York City Harbor

In the last century, New York City harbor’s oyster reefs, once teeming with life and vitality, have dwindled to near-extinction levels due to overharvesting and pollution. Though not first thing you’d associate with an urban metropolis, the bivalves have been a critical part of the city’s history—forming the backbone of healthy marine ecosystems and providing a popular source of protein.

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Billion Oyster Project

The brainchild of two New Yorkers who taught at The Urban Assembly New York Harbor School, Murray Fisher and Pete Malinowski, Billion Oyster Project was created as an opportunity for students, volunteers, community scientists, and local restaurants to learn about New York City’s rich oyster history and lead the movement to restore it.

The Project, founded in 2014, is on a mission to restore the once-thriving oyster reefs of New York Harbor and fortify the city’s coastline. It set its sights on a lofty goal—to reintroduce one billion live oysters into the harbor by 2035. Through a combination of innovative scientific restoration techniques and widespread community engagement, the project aims to revitalize the harbor's biodiversity and create a natural buffer against rising sea levels and storm surges.

"Outside our larger goal of fostering a reconnection and environmental stewardship in a city that forgets its surrounded by 520 miles of waterfront, this project wouldn’t exist without community support each step of the way." explains Giovanna Kupiec, Communications Coordinator for Billion Oyster Project

In the past decade, the project's restoration efforts have encompassed various strategies, including the deployment of oyster larvae on artificial reefs and the establishment of oyster nurseries to foster the growth of juvenile oysters. Not only have these initiatives enhanced the harbor's ecological resilience and improved water quality, it has also reinforced the founders’ beliefs that effective environmental restoration goes hand in hand with education.

"We’re spearheading educational programming for over 100 participating city schools in our backyard as we actively restore it—and it’s no easy operation, we have to be really flexible. We offer field experiences which bring students/community members to the waterfront, and get them in the field for hands-on data collection including water quality assessments, measuring oyster growth, and taking biodiversity/species identification assessments during visits. We also provide training for educators to bring harbor-related curriculum and even live oysters into the classroom, if field trips are not as accessible."

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New York’s Oyster History

The New York Harbor was once a bustling ecosystem, thanks in large part to the expansive oyster reefs that thrived beneath its waters. From sustaining Native American populations in the 1600s, to fishing restrictions placed in the 1700s to protect wild reefs from the popularity of oysters, to increasing amounts of raw sewage seeping through the harbor starting in the early 1900s, the reefs are a historical testament to the growth of a city.

Spanning over 220,000 acres, these reefs serve as vital habitats for hundreds of marine species, creating a rich and diverse underwater landscape reminiscent of coral reefs. Oysters are also critical ecosystem engineers—their interconnected shells forming a sturdy infrastructure that supports an underwater city of marine wildlife. Today, the Billion Oyster Project has revived the ecological legacy of New York Harbor by reintroducing these remarkable bivalves to their former glory. With the help of volunteers, they have restored over 100 million oysters in the harbor's waterways.

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Bivalve Basics

Part of the bivalve family, oysters are a type of mollusk characterized by their hinged shell, which consists of two halves. These creatures play vital roles in marine ecosystems, actively pumping water through their bodies to extract plankton and other nutrients while simultaneously filtering and cleaning the surrounding water. With each oyster capable of filtering up to 50 gallons of water a day, their reintroduction promises not only to improve water clarity but also to mitigate the harmful effects of nitrogen pollution, which can lead to devastating algal blooms and oxygen-depleted "dead zones" in marine ecosystems. 

Moreover, oyster reefs act as natural storm barriers, with the potential to soften the impact of large waves, reduce flooding, and prevent erosion along the coastline—a crucial defense for the city against the increasing frequency and intensity of storms exacerbated by climate change. The oysters also offer a physical habitat for local species, many of which have returned to the harbor in greater numbers since restoration efforts began—including sea horses, tunicates, pufferfish, sponges, and crustaceans. Some of their planted oysters have taken repopulation matters into their own hands, and have started reproducing naturally, further expanding the newly-rebuilt reef ecosystems.

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Seeding Change: Scientific Strategies

Between Coney Island Creek in Brooklyn to SUNY Maritime College in the Bronx, the Project has restored oysters at 18 sites across the five city boroughs to date. Thanks to the establishment of “field stations” throughout the harbor, the Billion Oyster Project and its partner organizations host regular field days to expose new stakeholders to oyster restoration efforts in the form of oyster reefs and nurseries beneath the waves.

"With the help of volunteer scientists (community scientists) and students, we can operate hundreds of satellite oyster cages called Oyster Research Stations in 50 different hub locations across the five boroughs, take wild oyster surveys, and assess water quality around the city in addition to our larger, established reef sites. These both inform our restoration efforts, and allow New Yorkers to get involved in the process, access open data, and fight for healthier waterways alongside us through science and activism in their own communities."

In 2015, the organization also started a Shell Collection Program, giving New York restaurants the opportunity to divert empty clam, scallop, and oyster shells from the landfill, and instead recycle them back into new homes at oyster restoration sites. Empty shells offer the perfect hard, calcium carbonate-rich surface for new baby oysters to latch onto and grow.

"Local oyster farms supply us with larvae for seeding in the Harbor and sell oysters to restaurants. The NYC dining community enjoys these oysters, and the restaurants then donate their shell waste to us, forming the basis for new reefs. Volunteers clean these shells, and partners such as Red Hook Terminals, offer spaces in the city for seeding new oysters. Harbor School students, volunteers, interns, and organizations like NY NJ Baykeeper, assist in installing these oysters at reef sites. Support from every sector drives the success of our project." says Kupeic.

There are currently 75+ restaurant partners within the Billion Oyster Project's network. In total, these partners have provided 2.5 million pounds of shell waste since 2015, which are serving as the foundation of 18 active reef sites with spawning new oyster growth.

Central to the Billion Oyster Project's success is its commitment to environmental education and community engagement. Partnering with more than a hundred local schools, restaurants, and related environmental initiatives, the project empowers New Yorkers to become stewards of their local waterways through hands-on learning experiences, oyster restoration activities, and engaging educational initiatives. By fostering a sense of ownership and responsibility for their environment, the project instills lifelong values of environmental stewardship and resilience in future generations.

"Getting close to wildlife drives the most excitement for folks of all ages, but bolstering that work inside the classroom and beyond allows students to learn STEM subjects with real data, and become teachers themselves. Many of these students are generating their own research projects related to our waterways, and present their work at our Annual Student Symposium (the 10th this year) on Governors Island each spring. Events like these showcase how each part of the educational process: field to classroom to analysis & discovery to communication & activism, is an important touch-point to put New York Harbor into the minds of our next generation, but when they work together students are capable of understanding nature-based solutions on a far deeper level - which they will carry into their future careers and community work—no matter the industry."

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Ripple Effects: Billion Oyster Project’s Climate Resilience

As the impacts of climate change continue to escalate, nature-based solutions like oyster reef restoration offer a way forward for many coastal communities around the world. While the organization still has a lot of work to go—the city’s Combined Sewer Overflow system still regularly dumps raw, untreated sewage into the water—the Billion Oyster Project is aiming to restore 100 million juvenile bivalves in the harbor each year, making significant strides towards a cleaner and more healthy marine environment. 

"New York Harbor’s rapid currents which bring new water into the harbor every 24 hours, along with an outdated sewer system that pollutes our waterways during heavy rain, makes data collection tricky, especially while most reef sites are not at a proper scale to combat these confounding variables. However, we’ve documented a significant increase in species richness at almost all our sites since initial installation and the presence of indicator species like menhaden and seahorses, which give us some insight into the quality of water surrounding our reefs."

Thanks to the efforts of the Billion Oyster Project, the New York harbor is the cleanest it’s been in over a century. Even humpback whales have been drawn back to the cleaner water, preying on some of the fish that call the oyster reefs home. 

"Oysters, on established reefs, are extremely resilient—just one species of oyster survives up and down the U.S. East coast, preferring the dynamic ecosystems of estuaries. They’re a species built to adapt to the chaos of an ecosystem on the line between land and sea. We placed a floor of blank shell (reef foundation) in the Hudson under the Tappan Zee bridge just two years ago. That reef bed today has permanently recruited roughly 6 million living, wild-born oysters. If we’re seeing that level of reproductive success, starting from zero…we think oysters might be key regulators of our shorelines in the thick of the climate crisis."

By leveraging the natural resilience of oysters and engaging local communities in conservation efforts, the Billion Oyster Project is pioneering innovative approaches to climate adaptation while building a more sustainable future for generations to come.

Learn more about the sustainability of oysters and how they can change ocean health for the better.

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All photos courtesy of Billion Oyster Project