The Town of Oyster Bay unanimously approved a resolution to extend the current moratorium on shellfish harvesting in the formerly leased underwater land in Oyster Bay Harbor and Cold Spring Harbor for an additional six months at its most recent meeting on Tuesday, March 25.
The resolution approved at the meeting said that the new moratorium period would begin effective immediately upon being filed by the secretary of state. Previous paperwork suggested the period would begin on April 8.
The town also scheduled a hearing to extend the town’s Battery Energy Storage System moratorium for April 8.
The town had held a public hearing about the extension on Tuesday, March 11, where two people spoke on the record about the extension of the moratorium — William McCabe of the Town Attorney’s Office and Deputy Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Resources Colin Bell. No members of the public provided public comment, unlike the town’s public hearing in August 2024 when the moratorium was first introduced.
The town board unanimously approved a resolution on Oct. 1, 2024, to impose a six-month shellfish harvesting moratorium on 1,850 acres of underwater land in the town harbor. The resolution said the underwater land would be tested and repopulated during the six months and that tests would help determine how long-term harvesting has affected the environment. The land was previously leased to the local shellfish harvesting company Frank M. Flowers & Sons, which had exclusive rights to the area for 30 years. The town said the area could not be surveyed during the lease period.
“The study has concluded that the harvest of hard plants by mechanical means over the past four years with no compensatory seed planting has severely decreased the plant population to extremely low levels with a serious lack of seed stock,” McCabe said about the tests. “There’s a presence of good habitat with potential restoration of the clam population, so we now need this additional time to ascertain and map out which areas of this habitat can be set aside as sanctuaries where seed shelters can be planted over the next several years.”
Bell said work in the area will likely be complete by the end of the extension, meaning that the area would then be open to the public. He also said the goal is to develop a plan for the best land use designations within the previously leased lands and to file the required paperwork to the state. Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino had mentioned the need for a “Bay Management Plan” at the August 2024 public hearing.
The town clarified that the moratorium only affects the acreage that was previously harvested by Frank M. Flowers & Sons.
Bell said he spoke with members of the North Oyster Bay Baymen’s Association and he said they understood why the extension was needed. Baymen had advocated for continued use of the acreage during the study at the August 2024 public hearing.
