Eliminate One Problem, Gain Another: Cut-Rate Oysters From Brooklyn

Things that make me never ever want to eat oysters again include . . . this, for example:

Hendrix Creek, flowing for just over a mile in Brooklyn through East New York, passes under the Belt Parkway and between two dormant landfills before it empties into Jamaica Bay. The creek, once fed by a natural stream, now starts at the output pipe of a wastewater treatment plant.

It is the perfect kind of place, said John K. McLaughlin, an ecologist for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, for an experimental project that would establish oyster beds, not for harvest, but as living water filters.

. . .

Even if the initial change in water quality is not significant, he said, the creation of a self-sustaining habitat in Jamaica Bay — where oysters and other species can survive and spread — would be an achievement. That process, Mr. McLaughlin said, would be the first step to restoring something close to the bay’s original ecosystem.

But if the Hendrix Creek oysters thrive, the city may well face another challenge: keeping away adventuresome gourmands who might be tempted to help themselves to the delicacies.

“There’s a worry that if you have oysters that sell for a dollar apiece, people will steal them and sell them,” [Gaia Institute executive director Paul] Mankiewicz said. “We want them for habitat, not edibility.”