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     Current Issue Highlights Highlights Archive             Get to know your Business Agent today!  Find out how the union makes a difference on the job. |
Newsline: May 2000 Islip Hatchery Workers' Make Jobs for Baymen; Improve Water Quality With the approach of warm weather, thoughts automatically spring to such things as barbecues, boating and bathing. Little thought is given, however, to a small handful of Local 237 members without whose continuing dedication to their jobs these pastimes would be in jeopardy. These professionals work for the Town of Islip Shellfish Culture Facility where efforts have been ongoing for years to restore the once-booming clamming industry in the town and on Long Island. The hatchery staff consists of Marty Byrnes, Bay Management Specialist II, Merri Zielenski, Bay Management Specialist I; Ed Dyer, Environmental Analyst; Laura Shollenberger, Environmental Technician; Mike Maraviglia, Environmental Aide, and Tony Sciallo, Maintenance Mechanic. Byrnes, who majored in marine science at Southampton College, began working for the township in 1985, two years prior to the establishment of the hatchery. He said it was created "to supply a large quantity of hard clam seeds to improve clamming conditions on Great South Bay." He explained that spawning clams begins by placing a male and female clam from their "brood stock" in a tank to allow eggs to undergo external fertilization in a controlled environment. "We use salt water from our own hatchery salt water well," he said. Zielenski, who holds marine biology degrees from the University of South Carolina and Stony Brook University, said their efforts have been so successful "that we can produce 40 million seed clams each year." "The efforts to revitalize the clam population not only help the baymen make a living harvesting and selling clams," Zielenski noted. "The clams also act as a natural filter for the bay water which makes boating, swimming and fishing more enjoyable." The fertilized eggs grow in safety in the laboratory until they are large enough to be dispersed in various sites in the bay. "When they are large enough, they are taken out by boat in buckets and spread by hand over the water," she said. "They fall to the bottom where they continue to grow." She likened the process to much like spreading chicken feed . Samples are taken annually at 300 different locations by hatchery employees to determine the success of the seeding efforts. The employees are able to measure their success rate because of a special genetic pattern on the clams that sets them apart from those that occur naturally in the bay," the biologist added. This special marking, which looks like a sunburst or a zig-zag pattern and is known as a "notata," gives the shells of the special clams a reddish-brown coloration. "Because of this, the baymen call them `reds'.Such a pattern occurs in less than 1 percent of clams that grow in the bay naturally," Byrnes said. Zielenski pointed out that clams are natural filters, so as well as providing a crop for the baymen, residents also benefit because the clams filter out algae and sediments and improve the water quality and clarity. In addition to their effort to revive the clam population, the hatchery staffers are expanding their efforts to include oysters. "Oysters were plentiful in the bay for years, but due to harvesting pressures and environmental changes, they disappeared," Byrnes said. "People for a long time have said they can't be bred in the bay waters, but we have been culturing oysters in tanks at the facility, which runs on bay water. We are anxious to see." |
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