Red Hook Oyster Containers.

Oyster cages used for a Billion Oyster Project oyster reef restoration in New York harbor are unloaded from a truck at Red Hook Terminal in Brooklyn.
Billion Oyster Project Executive Director Pete Malinowski loads loose oyster shells into shipping containers at Red Hook Terminal for transport up the East River in New York City to a Billion Oyster Project oyster reef restoration in Soundview.
Loose oyster shells wait to be loaded into shipping containers at Red Hook Terminal in Brooklyn that will be used for the Billion Oyster Project Soundview oyster reef restoration.
Danielle Bissett, Director of Restoration at Billion Oyster Project, transfers oyster shells at Red Hook Terminal as part of their effort to restore oyster reefs in New York harbor as one method of mitigating the impacts of storm surge due to climate change.
Oyster shells collected at more than 75 restaurants throughout New York City are used by Billion Oyster Project to restore oyster reefs to New York harbor as one method of reducing the destructive impacts of storm surge due to climate change.
Crews load oyster gabions into shipping containers at Red Hook Terminal for transport up the East River in New York City to a Billion Oyster Project oyster reef restoration in Soundview.

In partnership with Billion Oyster Project, Witness Tree Media created visual stories of the organization’s largest oyster reef restoration project at the mouth of the Bronx River in Soundview. Part one of the installation began at the Red Hook shipping terminal in Brooklyn, directly across from Billion Oyster Project’s headquarters on Governors Island. Crews from Billion Oyster Project filled empty shipping containers with loose oyster shells and gabions filled with oyster shells. The loose oyster shells would form the foundation of the oyster reef and the gabions would be used to form the structure of the reef.

The containers filled with loose oyster shells were transported up the East River to the installation site and emptied onto a barge where crews would offload the loose shells into the water, forming the foundation of the reef. Before being transported to the installation site, the containers filled with oyster gabions were filled with seawater at the Red Hook terminal. Next, oyster larvae would then be introduced to form live oyster spat, transforming the shipping containers into huge mobile oyster nurseries.

Once the nurseries were created, the shipping containers were transported by a barge up the East River to the installation site. Using a crane, the gabions filled with live oysters were lifted out of the containers and placed directly on top of the previously offloaded loose oyster shells. Once all the loose shell and oyster gabions were installed Billion Oyster Project would monitor the site to assess the success of the oyster reef installation and use the data gleaned from this project for future oyster reef installations.

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