NEW YORK (AP) — Landscape architect Kate Orff has a name for the work she does for the Oyster Restoration Research Project in New York City. She calls it Oyster-tecture.
Orff has designed a park and a living reef for the mouth of Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal where oysters could take hold and clean up one of the nation's most polluted waterways.
Marine scientists, planners and government officials say millions of mollusks planted in waters off New York and other cities would go a long way toward filtering America's polluted urban environment. The oyster and other shellfish can slurp up toxins and eliminate decades of dirt.
Bill Goldsborough of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation in Annapolis, Md., says that while oysters are cultivated around the world, the U.S. has some of the best regeneration programs.
