Every oyster shucked at Oyster Fest left something behind, and the Town of Oyster Bay has plans for all of it. The town said Friday that its environmental team collected about 3,300 pounds of oyster shells during the festival weekend of October 17 and 18, and that every shell is headed back into the water it came from.

Town aquaculturists will truck the shells to a curing facility, where they will sit for several months. Once cured, they go back into the harbor, where they become the surface the next generation of shellfish grows on.

Why a pile of shells matters

Young oysters need hard surfaces to attach to, and old shell is the surface they evolved for. Returned to the bay bottom, the cured shells become habitat where juvenile shellfish can set, grow and mature with some protection from weather and predators, according to the town.

The payoff compounds from there. Oysters and clams are filter feeders, straining the water as they eat, so every shell that helps another oyster reach adulthood also helps clean the harbor. The town frames the program as a straight line from a festival plate to clearer water.

Town Supervisor Joseph Saladino, Councilwoman Laura Maier, Councilwoman Vicki Walsh and Receiver of Taxes Jeff Pravato joined the environmental team for the collection, and Saladino said the shells that made the festival possible are being kept out of the trash and put back to work in local waters.

A program that runs year-round

The festival haul is the headline number, but the machinery behind it operates every week. The town's Shell Recycling Partner Program, run by the Department of Environmental Resources, collects shells from local restaurants and uses them to restore the bay bottom and natural shellfish habitat in Oyster Bay and Cold Spring Harbor.

Participating businesses store their shells in five-gallon buckets the town supplies, each holding about half a bushel, and the roster of partners includes Coach Grill and Tavern, Cafe Al Dente, The Fox Hollow, Rare650, Wild Honey, Opus Steakhouse, The Homestead and Cooper Bluff, among others.

A restaurant that wants in can apply through the program page at oysterbaytown.com/shellrecycling, or reach the Department of Environmental Resources at 516-677-5730.

The fest behind the numbers

The shells came from the town's annual Oyster Fest, held October 17 and 18 along the Oyster Bay waterfront, the two days a year when the town's signature shellfish is consumed at festival scale. The collection program means the event now feeds the harbor on the way out, with this year's 3,300 pounds beginning the months-long trip from the shucking table back to the bay bottom.

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