Feds agree to study dredging effect on Oyster Bay wildlife refuge

The federal government has agreed to settle a lawsuit by evaluating whether industrial shellfish dredging interferes with the protection of an Oyster Bay national wildlife refuge established in the late 1960s.

The settlement requires that the federal government’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issue within two years what’s called a Compatibility Determination about the refuge, which is named after the late Long Island Rep. Lester Wolff. The determination could lead to the curbing of the dredging or maintaining the status quo.

The plaintiffs include the North Oyster Bay Baymen’s Association and the Center for Food Safety.

The plaintiffs, the North Oyster Bay Baymen’s Association and the Center for Food Safety, filed the lawsuit last year, alleging that the government is improperly administering the refuge.

“Just like industrial agriculture harms our lands, industrial aquaculture is harmful to aquatic ecosystems and everyone who relies on them, including traditional harvesters. Fish and Wildlife Service must do its duty to protect this unique refuge for the benefit of all: humans and animals alike,” said Amy van Saun, a senior attorney with the center, in a Tuesday news release.

Van Saun said industrial shellfish dredging has been happening for years in the refuge, which litigators for Earthjustice said in the release has historically yielded 90% of the state’s total oyster harvest and 40% of its hard clam harvest annually.

The refuge, on the North Shore of eastern Nassau County and accessible only by boat, is more than 3,200 acres and includes bay, salt marsh and freshwater wetlands, “and is especially important for wintering waterfowl and a variety of waterbirds,” according to the wildlife service’s website.

A phone message with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wasn't immediately returned Tuesday.

When Oyster Bay deeded the land to become a refuge in 1968, the town reserved the right to allow clamming and other commercial uses, but the federal government can still regulate those uses for consistency with wildlife protection, van Saun said.

At issue is traditional fishery techniques done in rowboats versus relatively new technology to harvest clams and oysters, said Bill Lucey, of Long Island Soundkeeper, in an interview.

Lucey described the controversy as “these dudes with these huge arms and barreled chests and they row a single dredge” compared to larger commercial vessels that “blast the bottom with a jet of water … to loosen up the bottom so the oyster dredge can move through it and get the clams and oysters easier.”

“The environmental damage from someone using hand gear is way less than someone using a hydraulic dredge setup,” he said, “but what that environmental damage is, it’s not straightforward, depending on where the technology is used.”

For example, in a mostly enclosed bay, such as Oyster Bay, sediment disturbed by hydraulic dredging can’t widely disperse and stays within the bay, increasing turbidity in the water column — the space between the bottom and the surface.

But sediment disperses more easily and over a greater area when the hydraulic technology is used in the open Sound between Long Island and Connecticut and Westchester County.

Disturbed sediment can make a refuge less productive to wildlife, Lucey said.

High turbidity blocks sunlight, which reduces the productivity of the marine habitat. And it can cover wild shellfish reefs that aren’t commercially harvested but located on the edge of the bay, and that can smother them if there’s too much sediment, he said.

“Should a national wildlife refuge be used for industrial shellfishing or not?” is the big question, Lucey added.

The refuge was renamed in 2020 after Wolff, who helped create it in 1968.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.