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Andrew Rabinowitz reacted on thisSo cool seeing my dad’s passion project coming to life and thriving over the past few years! Robert Tymann Ed.D.Andrew Rabinowitz reacted on thisSouth Fork Sea Farmers (SFSF) on Earth Day released results from four years of reef monitoring in Accabonac Harbor and Three Mile Harbor. The data show that the organization’s four installed reefs are not only surviving their first East End winters but growing rapidly and, in the case of the oldest reef, beginning to reproduce on their own, the strongest evidence yet that community-built reefs can take hold as a self-sustaining tool against the nitrogen-driven algal blooms that have increasingly closed local waters. The release comes against the backdrop of what scientists have called some of the worst harmful algal bloom outbreaks ever recorded on Long Island, with more than two dozen lakes affected in 2025 and annual Alexandrium blooms forcing the seasonal closure of western Shinnecock Bay to shellfish harvesting. Scientists studying Long Island’s estuaries have repeatedly tied those blooms to nitrogen loading from aging septic systems, the same nitrogen that oysters pull out of the water column as they feed. What the 2022–2025 monitoring data show South Fork Sea Farmers has built and monitored four reefs since 2022. Each reef is tracked for survival (mortality), shell growth (spat size), rugosity (structural complexity), water quality, and natural set, the appearance of wild oyster larvae settling on the reef without hatchery seeding. The 2022–2025 results: Reef #1 (Accabonac Harbor, installed September 2022): 98.2% oyster survival at first count and 96.9% at second count, with shell growth from 3.3–3.7 cm to 3.5–4.1 cm across depth zones in the first eight weeks. In June 2024, monitors documented natural set, juvenile oysters (3.0–5.0 cm) that settled on the reef without hatchery seeding, meaning the reef has begun reproducing itself. Reef #2 (Accabonac Harbor, installed December 2023): mean spat size grew from roughly 17 mm at installation to 80.2 mm in the deep bag and 72.8 mm in the shallow bag by October 2024, a nearly five-fold increase in 44 weeks. Survival rebounded from 60.5% at the December 2024 winter count to 86.7% by October 2025, with shallow-bag spat continuing to grow to 73.7 mm. Reef #3 (Accabonac Harbor, installed July 2024): 82.1% survival at October 2024 count, with spat growing from 4.1 cm in October 2024 to 5.9 cm by October 2025, a 44% size increase year over year. Reef #4 (Three Mile Harbor Marina, installed July 2025): 85.5% survival at October 2025 count, the first reef sited at Three Mile Harbor and an early indication that the SFSF reef model transfers to a second East Hampton estuary. Across the program, every monitored reef has recorded survival rates above 80% at its most recent count, and the oldest reef has crossed the threshold that scientists consider the defining feature of a living reef, wild larvae settling on their own onto the shell. Robert Tymann Ed.D. "Barley" John Dunne Jeff Ragovin Alina Lundry Grace Grimes
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