New Sign At LI Maritime Museum Nods To Improve Water Quality

SAYVILLE, NY — After nearly 20 years, an iconic sign that welcomed visitors to the Long Island Maritime Museum is getting a new look.

The Nature Conservancy, in partnership with Suffolk County Parks Department, installed a new sign on Friday, which shares the history of the surrounding lands.

The new sign, which is illustrated in full-color, tells the history of the 13,425-acre Bluepoint Bottomlands — underwater lands that changed the course of The Nature Conservancy’s work on Long Island more than 15 years ago.

“Museums play a special role in society by educating and informing about the past,” said Terry Lister-Blitman, executive director of the Long Island Maritime Museum. “By visiting this museum ,guests experience history and its effects on the health of the Great South Bay and its surrounding estuary – both of which played pivotal roles in the story of Long Island."

What started as a mission to “jump-start Mother Nature” by restoring depleted hard clam populations in the Great South Bay became a public information campaign to reduce nitrogen pollution, the museum said.

That paved the way for programs today that allow homeowners to replace their polluting septic system with non-polluting ones, as well as public investments to expand and improve sewers island-wide.

“What we learned was that nitrogen and other pollutants had been leaking into our groundwater aquifers and ultimately flowing to our bays for decades.” said Carl LoBue, oceans director of the Nature Conservancy in New York. “It became clear that this wasn’t just a Great South Bay problem, it was something for us to resolve across Long Island, and that we needed to address nitrogen pollution at its source, which has meant over a decade of working with key partners at the state and local level.”

Bluepoint Bottomlands makes up about 25 percent of the Great South Bay, which was once home to the famed Blue Point oyster and the source of half the clams eaten in the United States just 50 years ago.

Overharvesting, over development, and pollution have each contributed to the depletion of shellfish in the bay. Research supported by the Nature Conservancy and partners including Stony Brook University found that excess nitrogen from polluting septic systems is a major factor leading to harmful algae blooms. The reoccurring algal blooms in nitrogen-rich waters make it hard for shellfish recovery to take hold, and choke out other marine life, such as eel grass.

The public information campaign and partnerships that followed brought together local scientists, advocacy groups, public officials, and homeowners to reduce nitrogen pollution and improve water quality on Long Island.

For more information on what causes nitrogen pollution and how to fix it, click here.