The Press of Manorville & the Moriches Online Edition

A few thousand oysters and two 25-foot-wide artificial islands may play a role in improving water quality by devouring offending algae and other organic material in the Forge River.

Brookhaven Environmental Protection Assistant Director Jeff Kassner said the town is setting the stage for a pilot project in which 10,000 juvenile oysters will be dropped in bags at various depths in the river. If the project is successful and the oysters grow into adults, the program will be expanded in an effort to reduce algae levels that have starved the river of oxygen in recent years, Mr. Kassner said.

Meanwhile, Save the Forge River Project Coordinator Susan Wischhusen said a group of William Floyd School District students in the fourth, 10th, 11th and 12th grades will be placing two floating islands teeming with indigenous plants at a location east of Barnes Road in Mill Pond in Moriches. The hostas, lilies and bleeding hearts will absorb nitrates, ammonia and phosphorous through their roots and improve water quality in the Mill Pond, which flows into the Forge River, Ms. Wischhusen said.

Both Mr. Kassner and Ms. Wischhusen spoke of their respective plans at a Forge River Task Force meeting on Monday. Also addressed at the meeting were the results of a $20,000 bathymetric mapping report, which suggests that sand buildup to the south of the river may be reducing circulation between it and the Moriches Bay, harming water quality.

Describing oysters as “filter feeders,” Mr. Kassner noted that they could be used in the Forge to consume the bulk of the algae there and prevent algae blooms that have been blamed for recent fish kills. He said the oyster experiment will begin in June, with regular inspections by town employees to see if the oysters are surviving.

A single adult oyster can filter about 30 gallons of water per day, he noted.

“Water quality is like a table with many legs,” Mr. Kassner said. “We want to put as many legs on this table as we can.”

Ms. Wischhusen said the floating islands will be installed on May 29 and are “not big enough to make a big difference” in water quality, but she said the program may be expanded to include more islands next year. The main goal of the project, she said, is to raise awareness among young people in the community about the environmental problems facing the river.

The islands going into Mill Pond are made of a porous plastic material, she said, and are built by Floating Island International, a Montana-based company. The cost of the materials is about $1,500 and it is being funded by Save the Forge River.

“So many people take water for granted, and I feel if we have another war it’s going to be over water,” Ms. Wischhusen said. “Water is something that we can’t replace.”

The town-funded bathymetric report, prepared by Dr. Robert Flood, a researcher at the Stony Brook University Marine Sciences Research Center, measured the depths of the river and its estuaries. The measurements highlighted problem areas where the tide is being blocked by shoals, or sand build ups. Shoals that have spread across the river bottom have severed the Forge River’s main channel from the main channel of the Moriches Bay, Dr. Flood said. This disconnect may be reducing the circulation between the two water bodies, further exacerbating the river’s oxygen-deprived state, he said.

The study was conducted from December 2007 to January 2008 and surveyed the river’s five estuaries as well as the river itself. The survey also found that four of the tributaries leading into the Forge River had deeper depths—as much as 8 feet—than the river’s main channel, which was measured to 5 to 6 feet deep, the survey reported.

“The circulation in the Forge River may be somewhat related to how the channel connects with the Moriches Bay,” Dr. Flood said. “It seems that water quality problems could be affected somewhat by addressing some of the problems at the bottom of the [river] system.”

River task force member and Peconic Baykeeper Kevin McAllister said that the report suggests that dredging the river’s shoals may be necessary. Save the Forge River has also advocated for dredging of the Forge River to improve flushing.

“The [bathymetric] report does clearly define some of the conditions in the river … [and] knowing the symmetry of that river is really important,” Mr. McAllister said. “Maybe a future prescription would be the dredging of these fills in order to improve the tidal flow of the river.”