Community Oyster Restoration Program
Launched in the Summer of 2020 with the generous support of our clean water partners at Advanced Wastewater Solutions (AWS), the Community
Oyster Restoration Program serves as an ongoing educational opportunity for the community to get their hands dirty and feet wet while helping to improve and restore our waterways! Located in Southampton’s Cold Spring Pond with permission from the Southampton Town Trustees, this program currently grows 150,000 oysters (Crassostrea virginica) for local restoration efforts per year. In 2023, Peconic Baykeeper also worked with the Southampton Town Trustees to establish two dedicated oyster restoration sanctuaries in Cold Spring Pond. These sanctuary sites will help support a new “seed to sanctuary” initiative for the majority of oysters grown in this program. Funding to both mark and monitor the success of this new initiative has been made possible by a generous grant from the Long Island Community Foundation in 2023. Participants can help out with all aspects of the program from attending maintenance sessions scheduled throughout the season to assisting with seeding efforts in the fall aboard the Baykeeper patrol vessel and/or personal watercraft. Contact [email protected] to sign up for updates regarding this program or to schedule an on-site tour.
