Oyster Project Begins in Stewarts Creek in Hyannis

Oysters on the half shell.

Oysters on the half shell.

HYANNIS – A project to clean up nitrogen from Stewart’s Creek in Hyannis entered a new phase this week with the introduction of oysters to the estuary.

According to Barnstable Town Manager Thomas Lynch, oysters were placed in Stewart’s Creek as part of a scientific experiment being conducted by the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.

Through a grant from the Massachusetts Environmental Trust, the group has placed oysters in the waterway to discover if they will uptake pharmaceutical contaminants as part of their natural filter feeding process, Lynch stated in his e-newsletter this week.

A team of scientists will retrieve the oysters in about 30 days and conduct another round of testing.

Stewarts Creek is one of six sites being targeted on the Nantucket Sound side of Cape Cod.

Stewart’s Creek has been in the news in the last several years after the town began a project to install sewers in the roads surrounding the creek as a way to help clean up the polluted estuary.

An oyster project to clean up an estuary is also underway at Little Pond in Falmouth.



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