Ribbed Mussel Pilot Study in the Bronx River, New York City

Overview

The New York State Office of the Attorney General has funded Carter Newell, a commercial shellfish farmer, and Rocking the Boat, a local youth-development organization, to install a raft in the Bronx River with ropes to catch and grow mussels.  These mussels naturally live along the Bronx River shoreline, but have lost most of their salt-marsh habitat as human populations and industry have expanded along the river.  Ribbed mussels now exist at much lower abundance than they did historically.

Mussels feed on plankton, and when they grow they incorporate into their shells and meat nutrients that are in excess in the urban waters around New York City.  These excess nutrients come from sources such as wastewater and storm runoff.  When the mussels are harvested, this harvest will also remove the excess nutrients from the environment that have been incorporated into their shells and tissue, thereby improving water quality for other marine life.

NOAA aquaculture scientists from the Milford Laboratory in Connecticut are helping to evaluate the effectiveness of these mussels at removing nutrients from the Bronx River.  Such harvest of cultivated aquatic animals and plants for the purpose of removing nutrients from the environment is referred to as “nutrient bioextraction,” and this project in the Bronx River is one of the first in the region to test the effectiveness of this relatively new technology.

Mussel Bioextraction Progress Report August 2011

Partners

Maine Shellfish R+D

Rocking the Boat

NOAA Fisheries Milford Laboratory

Funding

Bronx River Watershed Initiative

NOAA Aquaculture Program