Kids aim to help Hudson
Lobby Albany for law to boost oyster shell recycling
ALBANY — It’s a shell of a bill.
Students from the West End Secondary School on the Upper West Side were in Albany on Monday, pushing a piece of legislation offering tax credits to restaurants that recycle oyster shells in the Hudson River.
The teenagers are more than just miniature lobbyists, they had a personal hand in helping Assemblywoman Linda Rosenthal (D-Manhattan) pen the bill.
“It’s a really great cause and it already has a lot of support, but we’re hoping to push it even more,” said 14-year-old Jacqueline Lovci. “The Hudson River is an iconic part of the city and it’s also part of all of New York State and it’s really important we treat the bodies of water we have with respect.”
Participating restaurants would save their leftover shells and instead of sending them to the landfill, they would be picked up and returned to either New York Harbor or the Hudson. The reclaimed oysters are not for consumption, but instead are reseeded with oyster larvae that help filter out contaminants and pollutants as they mature, bolster the underwater ecosystem and strengthen the coastline against future storms.
The bill would provide a tax credit of 10 cents for each pound of oyster shells recycled, up to $1,000 per tax year.
The students, mostly in ninth grade, have worked with Rosenthal on the legislation since 2016, when they first began conducting research into the ecology of the Hudson River.
“In sixth grade, students learn about how oysters filterfeed our water, about how our harbor is polluted and what we can do to change that,” Jacqueline said. “What our group is essentially doing is we are saying, based off of what we learned, what can we do now, how can we make a change.”
Rosenthal applauded her co-authors.
“These intrepid students saw a problem, worked to identify an elegant and costeffective solution and are now up in Albany fighting to realize that solution,” Rosenthal said. “Oysters are Mother Nature’s natural water filter; restoring them to our state’s waterways will help to clean the water.”
Currently, a group of 70 restaurants across the city participate in the “Billion Oyster Project,” run by a nonprofit committed to filling the harbor with 1 billion bivalves by 2035. Oyster reefs once blanketed more than 220,000 acres of the harbor.
“We actually can grow about 20 new baby oysters, oyster larvae, in each reclaimed shell,” said the project’s deputy director Madeline Wachtel. “So if this bill passes it will increase the amount of shells we collect and incentivize restaurants to really collect every last shell and donate it to the project.”
Owners of Crave Fishbar, one of the restaurants already participating in the project joined the students Monday, handing out oysters to passersby.
“We’re a sustainable seafood restaurant so doing something like this for our environment and community is a part of our DNA,” Crave owner Brian Owens said. “But this pushes other restaurants that might not think about it to actually give back and clean local waters.”