Objective:

To plant 10 acres of eelgrass over three years at several sites within Suffolk County waters including parts of Long Island Sound, Peconic Estuary (Gardiners Bay) and the South Shore Estuary Reserve (Shinnecock Bay and Great South Bay). 

Background:

Eelgrass meadows are animportant habitat to numerous species of commercially significant fish and shellfish including the bay scallop, hard clam, striped bass, winter and summer flounder, bluefish, blue crab, american lobster and others.  For this reason, all of the estuary management programs in Suffolk County (LIS, PEP and SSER) call for restoration and enhancement of this resource.  In recent years Cornell has made great strides in the field of eelgrass restoration on Long Island to the point where we have been able to increase our efforts to the scale of multiple acres.  Continuing with our success in eastern Long Island Sound, Gardiners Bay and Shinnecock Bay, Cornell proposes to plant an additional 10 acres of eelgrass over three years at several sites in Suffolk County.  This effort would be accomplished using the latest planting techniques including transplantation in LIS and the Peconic Estuary and seeding and transplants in the SSER.