A state ban on the cultivation of oyster beds in the Keyport Harbor would be lifted under a bill working its way through the state Legislature. The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Gerald Cardinale (R-Passaic/Bergen), would permit the NY/NJ Baykeeper’s Eastern Oyster Reintroduction Feasibility Study to return to Keyport Harbor. The project was halted in 2010 when the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) banned the cultivation of commercial shellfish in contaminated waters… According to Dr. Beth Ravit, co-director of Rutgers University’s Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability and a researcher working on the oyster study, the goal of the project is to better understand the conditions in which oysters could flourish and then promote population growth in areas exhibiting those conditions. Ravit said the Eastern oyster provides several ecological benefits, including the ability to individually filter up to 50 gallons of water per day, as well as their propensity to fuse their shells together to create an “oyster reef.”
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New York Today: Spring, Undersea
A hidden, high-stakes drama is unfolding beneath the surface of the Hudson River. The city’s fragile oyster population is coming out of hibernation. Concealed beneath a thick sheet of ice in winter, they clasped shut and went dormant… Now, ensconced in metal cages that naturalists are using to restore the city’s once-rich oyster beds, they are yawning back open- those that survived, that is… “We have to get out and start pulling up the cages and see how many are living,” says Beth Ravit, an environmental scientist at Rutgers University… Scientists like Dr. Ravit looking to the oysters for their ability to filter out pollutants and possibly to help prevent flooding. But oysters are sensitive. And microscopic morsels like phytoplankton, which oysters find tasty, die off in dark winter waters. That left oysters starved during the colder months, victims of the seasons’ ruthless cycle… “It’s all about who eats who,” Dr. Ravit said… Dr. Ravit and her collaborators from NY/NJ Baykeeper started with 250,000 oysters in Raritan Bay. In the coming weeks, they will find out how many remain.
EPA Considering Hackensack River for Cleanup Plan
In an acknowledgment that the Hackensack River remains seriously polluted with a century of industrial waste, the federal government will consider adding the river to the federal Superfund list, a program reserved for the country’s most contaminated sites… In addition, research conducted by Rutgers’ Judith Weiss over the past decade has showed that the mercury and PCBs in the Hackensack’s sediment are still so high that crabs and bluefish exhibit extremely odd behavior, making it hard for them to catch prey… “Are there environmental impairments in the Hackensack? I believe there are,” said Beth Ravit, the Rutgers University professor in charge of the study on the use of oysters to clean up the river.
Rutgers Environmental Science Students Volunteer at Local “Freecycle” Event
Freecycling is a grassroots effort by people who are giving and getting used items for free and keeping usable stuff out of local landfills. The Friends of the East Brunswick Environmental Commission (Friends EBEC), a nonprofit citizens group dedicated to local environmental education and conservation, has sponsored several Freecycling events for the past few years, […]
Faculty and Staff Accomplishments
We congratulate these SEBS and NJAES faculty and staff on their accomplishments, appointments and awards below. For university-wide announcements, please visit the Rutgers Faculty and Staff Newsletter. 2024 Thomas Molnar, associate professor in the Department of Plant Biology, is the principal investigator of a four-year grant totaling $160,000 from the Ferrero Hazelnut Company (Ferrero HCo), […]
How to Bank on the Old Raritan: Rutgers Co-Sponsors Sustainable Raritan River Conference Valuing Natural Capital
Healthy ecosystems are ecological life-support systems providing an array of goods and services vital to human health and livelihood. These natural assets are referred to as “ecosystem services”. According to the USDA, many of these goods and services are traditionally viewed as free benefits to society, or “public goods” such as wildlife habitat and diversity, […]
Rutgers-designed Environmental Park in Voorhees Hosts Earth Day Kite Flying Event
Kite-flying competition to headline event at the former South Jersey landfill transformed by an award-winning design from Rutgers landscape architecture graduate students EDITOR’S NOTE: Members of the media may contact Beth Ravit, Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability, by phone at 201-774-1614 (cell) or by email at ravit@envsci.rutgers.edu or Wolfram Hoefer, Rutgers professor of landscape […]
Oysters Eyed as Help for New York Harbor
They are soft to the touch, but surrounded by a hard rough shell. Known as filter feeders, many as small as your thumb, they use their tiny cilia to draw in plankton, sediment and other particles over their gills and spit out cleaner water…These ecol…
