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Simon Harrison tended his oysters in the shadow of the Sag Harbor sewage treatment plant in December.[/caption]
By Stephen J. Kotz
Simon Harrison, a Sag Harbor real estate broker, who has undertaken a one-man crusade for cleaner water through the cultivation of filter-feeding oysters, has run afoul of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
After learning that Mr. Harrison had been raising the bivalves just a stone’s throw from the outlet pipe of the Sag Harbor sewage water treatment plant on the village waterfront, the DEC two weeks ago ordered Sag Harbor Harbormaster Bob Bori to confiscate both the oysters and the racks they were being grown in.
The DEC prohibits the cultivation of shellfish in uncertified waters—where the harvesting of them for human consumption is not allowed.
“I’ve been doing this for five years, but it took a front-page story for someone to report me,” Mr. Harrison said this week. He was featured prominently in a feature story in The Express on a growing movement to cultivate oysters both as a food source and as a way to clean the water, although in his case, he stressed his oysters are not offered for human consumption.
An average oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. While a few thousand oysters won’t have any effect on water quality, Mr. Harrison said he dreamed of a day when the village’s harbor bottom would be home to a million or more oysters, churning away at the nutrients and algae in the water. “Fifty million gallons per day. Nobody is going to tell me that’s not going to have an effect,” he said.
The problem with his plan is that the DEC is concerned that someone might help themselves to some of Mr. Harrison’s stock and get deathly ill because even though oysters are filters feeders if they are ingesting polluted water, they too become tainted. If moved to clean water, they soon filter the pollutants out of their bodies.
The DEC did not respond to requests for comment.
“I’ve had five years of success without anybody stealing oysters or getting sick,” Mr. Harrison said. “There’s no lack of enthusiasm for what I’m doing. We need more oysters. If the law is preventing that, we need new laws.”
Mr. Harrison obtained the go-ahead from both the village Harbor Committee and the Village Board to raise the oysters under village-owned docks. But, reasoning that he wasn’t growing them for human consumption, he didn’t bother to get a DEC permit.
“There are a lot of projects underway in certified waters under the purview of the DEC,” he said. “I mutinied. I was a pirate. I did it in uncertified waters.”
He said he has yet to hear from the DEC if it plans on fining him, or if he will just get off with a strict warning. “I’m under the impression that my program just ended,” he said, “but there would be no further action.”
Still, he said he hoped he could restart his shellfish seeding effort some day soon.
“My plan is to make an application with some professional guidance,” he said. “They’ll probably say no, never, but I’m going to persist.”
Mr. Harrison said he hoped to one day turn the entire inner harbor into a “oyster preserve,” where his oysters could work their magic.
In the meantime, he has asked the DEC for the results of its water testing with the hope “I might actually find some proof my oysters have made an impact.”
“I want to work with the DEC to get the project up and running again,” he said. “The DEC has suggested I do it through the village and file an application for an educational program. I had to remind them I have been doing that,” he said.
on Feb 10, 2016