♪ [horn honks] [siren] ♪ PETE: If you ask
most New Yorkers what's the deal
with New York Harbor, they'll say it's toxic,
polluted, you shouldn't touch it. It's dangerous. I want everyone who lives
around New York Harbor to see New York Harbor as this incredible, natural,
biodiverse place. And so what we're trying to do is to build
a community-led movement to restore nature where we live. ♪ We have inside... lots of oysters. We want to get New York Harbor
to the point where every piling,
every bulkhead is just completely covered
with live oysters. ♪ ♪ [motor starts] [revving] ♪ NARRATOR: Most days
Pete Malinowski can be found in New York Harbor-- one of the largest harbors
in the world. PETE: The harbor's actually
almost the same size as the land area of the city. It's about 200,000 acres. And most of it looks like this,
where it's all hard shorelines, there's industry or residential
right up to the edge. [ship horn blows] Right, there's a ton
of commercial traffic... [helicopter] ...and obviously
the helicopters, but right now, right,
there's nobody-- there's no other boats. It's the biggest open space
in New York City, and it's underutilized. ♪ NARRATOR:
Over the last 15 years, Pete's been leading an effort
to restore the harbor and its wildlife... by reintroducing a creature with the power to revive
this entire ecosystem. It's called the Billion Oyster
Project, or BOP. A name that proclaims
its ambitious goal. ♪ PETE: Billion Oyster Project
is a nonprofit aimed at restoring 1 billion
oysters to New York Harbor through education initiatives. We don't know if we'll
be able to do it, but we think if we get as many
people involved as possible, that we'll be able to do
this hard thing together. ♪ NARRATOR:
It's a monumental effort that's inspired
the collaboration of thousands of New Yorkers, government agencies, and close to 100
of the city's businesses. [horns honking] It all began
as a class Pete taught at a very unusual high school. ♪ Located on Governors Island, the Urban Assembly
New York Harbor School sits between Brooklyn
and Manhattan. The only way to reach it
is by ferry. JAYLEN: We have
various different programs like marine biology and diving
and aquaculture and vessel ops. And we all work together to like help better
the environment in different ways. TEACHER: Okay, so the EPA
is studying whether or not to make it
a Superfund site. PETE: Harbor School is a regular
Regents public high school, available to any eighth grader
in New York City. The difference between
Harbor School and other schools is that students specialize
after their ninth-grade year in one of seven marine fields and then spend a lot of
their time in those classes. PETE: Let's look
at the oysters over here. STUDENT: Yeah, so right here,
this is the, um... where the brood stock,
where we like breed oysters. NARRATOR:
It's here that Pete began an aquaculture class on oysters that became the seed for
the Billion Oyster Project. PETE: The idea
for oyster restoration was to be a part of bringing
this hands-on learning, but it's also access
to the natural world, experiences in nature,
doing purposeful work outside. And those opportunities
to do that are just fewer and farther
between for all young people, especially young people
in cities. NARRATOR: So Pete decided
to introduce the students to a creature he's known
his whole life. ♪ PETE: I grew up
on Fishers Island, New York, on an oyster farm. All of my first memories
was working with oysters. I learned how to drive a boat before I learned
how to ride a bike. I was never a good student, and the school part
was always frustrating. And I don't know
if it's a good reason, but that was why I wanted
to get into teaching. Because for kids like me, school should be different
than it was for me. ♪ NARRATOR: In Pete's class, students got
some real world experience growing and planting oysters
in the harbor... and seeing what makes oysters
a keystone species-- a creature that has
a super-sized impact on its ecosystem. ♪ Oysters create giant reefs that provide infrastructure
for an entire marine community. ♪ And keep it healthy
by filtering the water clean on a massive scale. Just by planting oysters, the school could help transform
the harbor and the city itself. So they set a staggering goal: restore a billion oysters
by 2035. ♪ PETE: We realized very early on that the only chance for us
to be successful in restoring one billion oysters
to New York Harbor was to find, you know, leverage
the incredible diversity of talent and expertise
that exists in New York City. ♪ So we have all kinds
of different partnerships with creative firms,
with scientists, marine contractors,
all over the place. And we rely
on those partnerships and that help
to get our work done. ♪ NARRATOR: Partners show up
from all over-- and often learn on the job. JOHNNY: These volunteers here
are public New Yorkers, or even from out of town. It's always a pleasure
to see that New Yorkers can come here and say, oh, like,
I didn't know this existed. I didn't know this was like... I didn't know
this island existed. ♪ NARRATOR: Today it's their first
step in oyster restoration-- giving oysters a place
to call home. They're building special cages
called gabions. JOHNNY: So a gabion
is actually a mesh structure, which typically is used
for putting rocks in and holding up,
like, shorelines. But we're using it
with oyster shells, and they actually hold about
800 to 900 pounds of shell. We can have up to 150-
to 250,000 oysters in one gabion. ♪ NARRATOR: These cages,
packed with empty shells, will be dropped into the harbor along with oyster larvae
grown by the BOP. They will become nurseries
for growing oysters. ♪ Oyster larvae free swim for the first two weeks
of their lives. After that,
they anchor themselves, usually to older oyster shells,
and become immobile. The baby oysters, called spat, then recycle calcium carbonate
from these old shells to form their own. As they grow on the backs
of each other, oysters anchor their ecosystem
by forming massive reefs. ♪ BEN: So, in the wild, you would
go out and you would see a reef, but it would just be filled
with oysters growing on top of other oysters. So, what we're trying to do
is reproduce that reef by giving them a head start by giving them the, you know, the clean shell
to attach themselves to. NARRATOR: Project employees Ben LoGuidice
and Stephen Villegas are monitoring an older nursery. BEN: What we're looking for is growth and mortality
of the oysters. And if we see a lot
of mortality, we know that maybe
that site's not the best. ♪ So, this is what we call
spat-on-shell, and all of these,
you know, oblong or circular little things here, those are actually
living oysters that are about a year old. So there's probably 10 or 15
oysters on this one shell alone. Yeah, so this is, this is
exactly what we're hoping to put back in the harbor
and in different locations to help rebuild that ecosystem. NARRATOR: With so much growth,
it won't be long before these oysters
are transferred to other locations
throughout the harbor-- a place that oysters
have inhabited for ages. ♪ It's believed New York Harbor was once home to half
the world's oysters. PETE: 450 years ago,
there were oyster shoals throughout the whole harbor,
over 200,000 acres of reef. NARRATOR: These reefs
formed underwater habitats teeming with life. PETE: This was a center
for biodiversity for the whole, you know,
western North Atlantic. Everywhere you looked,
you saw fish, dolphins, whales, every manner of sea creature
was all here in the harbor. ♪ Early colonists described actually not being able to see
the sky for minutes at a time because there were
so many birds. ♪ Oysters are a keystone species, so all of that abundance
and diversity, a lot of that relied
on the oyster reefs for habitat, food, shelter. So, without the reefs, you lose
all those animals pretty quick. NARRATOR: From the time
the European settlers moved in, they began harvesting this
seemingly limitless resource. ♪ New York became the oyster
capital of the world. PETE: Oysters used to be enjoyed
by everybody, rich and poor alike. You could buy oysters
for a penny in a cart, you know, on a street corner or eat them
at fancy restaurants. ♪ NARRATOR:
By the late 19th century, New Yorkers were consuming
a million oysters a day and selling millions more to
cities across the US and Europe. PETE: Eating them
was the main... that's what removed
all the natural oyster reefs. And then the harbor
just went to ****. And then we just dumped
sewage and trash and industrial chemicals
into the harbor for about a hundred years, to the point where the harbor actually became
very off-putting. People describe it
being smelling bad, looking bad, seeing, you know,
dead horses floating by, seeing these noxious bubbles
come up from the bottom. And we still carry a lot
of that legacy today, people thinking
that New York Harbor is a toxic, polluted place. ♪ NARRATOR: In reality,
the legacy is a mixed one. ♪ In 1972, the Clean Water Act banned the flow of industrial
pollutants into these waters. Today the harbor
is cleaner than it's been at any time
in the last 100 years. ♪ But during heavy rains, the city's
outdated sewage system still empties right into it. PETE: So, this drains
North Brooklyn into this water body, averages 700 million gallons of untreated household
wastewater every year, which is the same volume
as the Empire State Building, just to put that
in its context, but... So, the water quality here,
as a result of that, is not great. NARRATOR: But even here, oyster beds the BOP has planted
are taking hold. PETE: In 2013,
there was one oyster, one wild oyster
on the wall in here. There's a bunch of them
under this piece of wood here. See them down there. See, there's a lot more. So this a huge deal, it means that the oysters
are reproducing effectively. NARRATOR: Their growing numbers have huge implications
for the harbor... because oysters possess
a superpower. These two tanks contain water
from the harbor. One also contains
a dozen oysters, which clean the water
in a matter of hours. The other tank, without oysters,
stays dirty. PETE: Oysters filter the water. They improve water quality
a hundred percent. Because they're filter feeders, oysters pull water
through their bodies. And the gills sort through the different particles
in the water, decide what the oyster's
gonna eat and what it's gonna reject. NARRATOR: As they feed,
oysters remove algae, nitrogen and contaminants from the water. In the wild, an adult oyster
can filter up to twelve and a half gallons
of water a day. That's a bathtubful
every three days, per oyster. The BOP has already planted 100 million oysters
in the harbor. That's like 100 million
water purifiers already at work. But they still need
a helping hand. PETE: As long as we're
pouring sewage into the harbor, you have more dirty water
to filter. So, oysters are not
going to solve the water quality problems
in New York Harbor, but they certainly play a role
in making it cleaner. NARRATOR: That role will become
even more powerful when more people get
behind the restoration. So the BOP has
a range of partners to help with outreach, and each does it
in their own way. ♪ Among the city's
5,000 food carts, there's a special one headed
to the waterfront in Brooklyn. It's called Mothershuckers. MOODY: My name is Moody. I run Mothershuckers. We're the only oyster cart
in New York City, as of right now, until
somebody else copies me. ♪ NARRATOR: Moody started
shucking oysters in Florida for the money. But it wasn't exactly
love at first sight. MOODY: Crazy,
I didn't like oysters, I thought it was--I thought
oysters was disgusting. The thing that really
changed my mind was like all of this information about how oysters are good
for the environment, how the oysters are the backbone
of New York City. NARRATOR: Moody is helping to educate the public
about oysters, but he's going about it
in his own way. MOODY: Back in the days, instead of selling hot dogs
on the street, they used to sell oysters. And that was kind of like
the common man's food. ♪ Right now it's like
my objective is really, you know, jeez, how about we get
some oysters into the hood. NARRATOR:
New York Harbor's oysters are too contaminated for eating and more useful
for building reefs. So, Moody serves
farmed oysters instead. MOODY: Those are the West Coast,
and the flat shell, those are
the East Coast oysters. WOMAN: Excellent.
As usual, beautiful. Thank you. MOODY: My pleasure.
[laughs] Let's go, let's go, let's go.
[laughs] You know somebody will come up
to me and they'll say, "You know, I've had oysters
before, but I don't like them." You want to try it? WOMAN: Do you have
anything spicy? MOODY: Yeah, yeah.
Try the candy apple. Here. You know, it gives me
an opportunity to run them down
on some oysters. My thing is turning people on. And then when it comes to
like Black people, oh, my God. MAN: Oh, nah,
oh, nah, oh, nah. MOODY: When we like stuff,
we freaking love it, so it's like... MAN: And I'm gonna come back, you know what I'm saying,
brother. MOODY: I appreciate
the appreciation. And so it makes it
a good time, you know? ♪ ♪ NARRATOR: As the shells pile up,
Moody sets them aside... for a recycling service
of a special kind. NARRATOR: Around 50 restaurants
are participating in this special roundup. These are the shells
that will end up in the gabions built
by the Billion Oyster Project. PETE: We work with restaurants
to source all of our shells. And our restaurant partners
do the work of separating out shells
from the other trash. And the shell comes out
to Governors Island to be, as sort of building blocks
for our reefs. NARRATOR: Since 2014
Pete and the BOP have been restoring the reefs
to revive the city's past. Now they are joining forces
with another New Yorker on a landmark project-- one to turn oysters into
guardians of the city's future. It's called Living Breakwaters, and it's become
the city's response to a disastrous wake-up call. ♪ [siren] KATE: We were, you know, looking
at the news reports, you know, seeing this giant front
of weather coming our way. Like many New Yorkers, I felt like, okay,
well, we're New York. We can handle this. And it caught us just
really by surprise. NARRATOR:
Landscape architect Kate Orff is the visionary behind
the Living Breakwaters project. KATE: So, in the aftermath
of Superstorm Sandy, there was just a real sense that New York had to think
differently about climate and how we were going
to mitigate and adapt. NARRATOR:
As a city surrounded by water, with an astounding
520 miles of coastline, New York has become
increasingly vulnerable to bigger storms
and rising seas. Its traditional infrastructure
can't keep up. KATE: And so, rather than,
you know, building a $100 billion vertical seawall
to block ourselves off, we said, we're gonna really
embrace our watery context and try to modify our
shorelines, modify our edges. So, we, um, we made
a big choice, we took a different path. NARRATOR: That's where
Living Breakwaters comes in. Kate and her architecture firm,
SCAPE, have been working
with Pete and the BOP to harness another
oyster superpower-- oyster reefs' ability to combat
both big waves and rising seas. PETE: Historically, oyster reefs
probably played a huge role in protecting New York
from storm surges and waves, preventing those waves
from crashing onto the shore. And they're absolutely part
of the solution to protecting New York again. KATE: Shellfish, and so... NARRATOR: Kate's using oysters to reimagine
urban infrastructure. KATE: We actually have
oyster shells inside the unit itself. NARRATOR: SCAPE has designed a 2,400-foot-long set of breakwaters in Raritan Bay near the shoreline
of Staten Island. KATE: Living Breakwaters
is like a pile of rocks that calm the waves, and it creates that kind of
thick, layered shoreline that is safe and protective. NARRATOR: This wall
will be a collaboration between humans and oysters. The breakwaters
provide scaffolding on which the oysters
can build reefs. ♪ Oyster reefs are
nature's storm barriers. They deflect and diffuse
the power of waves, protecting the land behind them. And unlike manmade defenses, they grow vertically,
keeping pace with rising seas. These living breakwaters
will become sturdier over time and expand to accommodate
more life. ♪ Kate and her team
have designed each element with marine life in mind. KATE: It looks like Legos, but it's a model of one
of the many breakwater units. What's fun to see on this model is what we're calling
reef streets. Small fish need places
to hide from the larger fish in order to survive. And it's this kind
of rocky complexity that enables that. NARRATOR: The units are made
of a form of concrete called ECOncrete that supports biological growth. ♪ KATE: In addition we have this. When the water recedes
at a low tide, you still have a tide pool here. So over time, you know,
these become little, you know, mini worlds
in and of themselves. So we envision
the Living Breakwaters project to align ourselves
around like nature not being something
that we take for granted, but something that we have
intentionally and purposefully designed for and cultivate. ♪ NARRATOR:
Out near Staten Island, all of these seemingly disparate
pieces are coming together. ♪ KATE: Well, it's so fun
to see it under construction after what, eight years? PIPPA: Almost nine. KATE: Nine years of, uh,
of blood, sweat and tears. NARRATOR: Already, the team
has begun seeing the first signs of life. PIPPA: We're even seeing
birds perch on it, seeing critters
in the tide pools. KATE: We've already seen
a lot of clams, lobsters. This whole shoreline is
gonna be booming with life. ♪ A couple weeks ago
right on this stone over here we saw a harbor seal. That was a big moment for us. We saw the vision
coming to life. ♪ NARRATOR: Once the breakwaters
are assembled, Pete and his team will help
with the next phase. ♪ PETE: Our role is to put
live oysters on the breakwaters, and so we're really excited about all the work
that we've done with SCAPE, and it's a really cool
proof of concept that's going
in the water right now. NARRATOR: It's also
an entirely new way of reviving a city's
relationship with the wild. KATE: We used to think
about the wilderness and we used to think
about city building, and now we have to think about both of those things
at the same time. You can't just sit back and say, well, we'll just let nature
take its course. We'll just let
the rewilding happen. We actually have to actively
make infrastructure to enable nature
to take hold again. ♪ PETE: If we're trying
to figure out how to solve the environmental
challenges of the planet, we have to have more people who
have fallen in love with nature, through their actions,
the things that they do. And you're not gonna do that if you're not trying
to save something that you care deeply about. I know for sure that if everyone
in New York City knew New York Harbor
like I know New York Harbor, all of this pollution
would stop immediately, because you're
destroying something that has this,
like, incredible value, that's full of, you know,
all these cool animals and should be protected
and preserved and enjoyed. I've seen ibises
and kingfishers, giant flocks of gannets. I've seen whales and dolphins. ♪ By restoring the ecosystem and bringing some of those
animals back into the harbor, you could really have a city that's surrounded
by wild animals again. [horn honks] [motorcycle rumbling] NARRATOR: Perhaps,
in the not too distant future, the Big Apple
could reclaim the nickname it went by so long ago: the Big Oyster. [birds calling]
