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Students seed 50,000 clams in Mt. Sinai Harbor waters
Schools, Brookhaven combine on bivalve comeback, learning opp
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October 29, 2009 | 01:39 PM
On a bright October morning, 30 students from Mount Sinai High School and Comsewogue High School waited eagerly at Mount Sinai Harbor to discover the results of five months of work raising clams for the Town of Brookhaven. As one of the five rafts built by the students was hauled ashore and opened, they peered through the overgrown algae and sea life to see their clams in the sand below. Dan Stenzler, a marine biologist working with Western Suffolk BOCES, explained the correct way to handle the calipers to measure the clams. A few clams were measured and the word spread fast. What had measured only 6 mm when planted in the spring, now measured between 25 and 33 mm! They were the size of nickels and quarters.
"This is amazing," said Tom Carrano, the assistant waterways management supervisor for the Town of Brookhaven, who had grown the original seed clams for the project in his facility at Mount Sinai Harbor. "In 2005, the last time there was a good set of baby clams in the Great South Bay, we measured them the next spring and they only grew to 5 mm after one year. Just months later a brown tide bloom killed them all. It is because of the mortality of clams in our waters that projects like yours are so important to the Town," Carrano told the students.
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| | | Dan Stenzler, back to camera, demonstrates for students the correct use of calipers to measure the clams. An opened clam raft is visible in foreground right.
Photos courtesy of Kathy O’Sullivan. (click for larger version) | |
"Did they grow so well because we kept them in cages, and cleaned the cages?" asked a student.
"For one thing it is because the nutrients in Mount Sinai harbor are so much better than the Great South Bay," Carrano explained. "But it is also, definitely, because you tended the cages keeping them cleaned enough to get the nutrients through to the clams."
"Will they be safe from crabs now?" asked a student.
"Pretty much," Carrano replied. "Blue Claw crabs are their fiercest predator and there aren't too many of them in this harbor."
The students from both schools studied the history and place of clams in the local economy with Stenzler, visiting both the Sayville Maritime Museum and the Land and Sea Restaurant in Mount Sinai. Under his direction they also dissected a clam to learn about shellfish anatomy and visited the Islip Shellfish Hatchery to learn about clam embryology. Only then did students in both schools spend two days building the rafts/cages that would be needed. On a day in May, down at Mount Sinai Harbor, students filled the cages with a layer of sand and added the tiny clams, which would dig themselves in. The Town of Brookhaven towed the rafts to a suitable growing spot.
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| | | | Students saw this week how the clam seed they planted in rafts they built themselves grew during about five months in the harbor.
Students gathered the young clams, seen here in a tote with some stones, and “dumped” them carefully into the nutrient-rich waters of Mount Sinai harbor. (click for larger version) | | |
Both schools required students to come to the harbor three times during summer vacation to scrub the cages free of marine animals, seaweed and algae. The students had volunteered for the project, most have a class in marine or general science. At Comsewogue, willing volunteers were also found among the 'Greenagers,' the student environmental club that takes on many green initiatives such as beach cleanups.
Tuesday morning the town towed the rafts back to the launching ramp at Cedar Beach. It was a process to retrieve the clams. The dirt in each section of the raft had to be carefully shoveled with its treasure of clams into totes. The totes were then tipped into baskets in the water so the sand could be washed away. The clams were collected into a clean tote and picked over to remove crabs, starfish and large algae. The job took about four hours before a town launch could start taking the totes out into the harbor. Students took turns riding out on the boat to help carefully tip the clams into areas known to be conducive to their growth. Mortality was low, so project organizers estimate close to the original number of 50,000 seed clams have now been seeded into the harbor.
Comsewogue students were guided in their work by Stacy Conover, a biology teacher, and Joanna Milton, an art teacher who is faculty advisor for the Greenagers. The Mount Sinai students were encouraged by Andrew Matthews Director of Math, Science and Technology, who has been fishing and lobstering in area waters since he was a boy. Biology teacher David Chase was the man in charge.
The program was made possible by funding supplied throgh the office of Councilwoman Jane Bonner. With the continued backing of the schools and the town it is hoped the project will start again in the spring. Next year the students would also study water quality with the aid of a grant provided by Legislator Dan Losquadro, awarded to the Port Jefferson-based Long Island Seaport & Eco Center for the purchase of testing equipment for the school. Carrano will again supply the seed, aided by Emily Goldner, Brookhaven Bay Management Specialist.
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