For the past seven years I have been working on a book with Meredith Comi of the NY/NJ Baykeeper which will be a handbook on sustainable reef restoration methods. Our experiments and findings will be published along with a how-to illustrated guide. The recipe below is our initial guidelines for what the book will be about which could change slightly as we repeat some experiments and try others, but I thought you might enjoy seeing the initial chapter which we are creating in fairytale style!

This recipe must be implemented in early spring when the water temperature gets warmer. Typically, oysters spawn in mass on the first full moon of the season. Find a spot with strong current from which oysters can receive the maximum amount of nutrients and oxygen possible. Keep the structure out of the general public’s way.

One oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day. Since New York’s estuaries are polluted; oysters will be toxic for consumption for at least the next 40 years.

The most crucial ingredient, calcium carbonate–the substance a shell is made of–is the basic building block for oyster reef. This recipe is designed for areas where reef no longer exists, so solutions must be made for naturally occurring shell.

1) Submerge metal in seawater. Add low volts of electricity. Any kind of renewable energy source will do. If grown slowly the calcium carbonate is three times the strength of concrete and is naturally self-repairing.

2) Collect shell. Shell must be from waters north of New York City as southern shell is riddled with disease. Do not use restaurant shell.

3) Coat hard fire ceramic such as porcelain with calcium carbonate or pure lime. Other forms of calcium carbonate may be used such as aragonite, chalk, or even crushed marble.

4) Mix calcium carbonate into molten glass to create textured foam. This can be cast in any shape.

5) Create netted forms with natural fibers such as hemp rope, the least water-soluble fiber. Fill the nets with young oysters attached to substrate. Oysters will grow to fill the net with reef. The net will naturally disintegrate over time leaving no toxic residue and a healthy reef.

NOTE: This recipe does not use plastic or concrete.

This idea of using “fuzzy rope” is a bad idea because though it is cheap it is made of plastic. Plastic photo-degrades in sunlight and its particles get so small they are impossible to retrieve from the water. We still do not know the long-term ramifications of making this ‘toxic soup’ because plastic is such a new material but we do know that it leeches toxins indefinitely and has been found in not only the stomachs of smaller fish but has made its way up the food chain. In fact tiny particles of this photo-degraded plastic have been found in the center of tumors and in the flesh of human fetuses.

In addition this method was developed for mussels not oysters. Mussels have tensile threads that allow them to cling to objects for up to 2 years but are not reef makers like oysters. Oysters grow by cementing their shells unto other oyster shells making them the backbone or structure of the reef.

Adding vast strands or wads of plastic or “fuzzy rope” adds a third problem to the mix which is it would pose a navigational hazard for boats in the area.  I could go on, but, really why? Fuzzy rope is the worst idea I have heard of yet and unfortunately it is all over the media…nobody working on this had any ill intentions the same way that the inventors of plastic thought it was a new dream. Its just that plastic should never be put in water this way.

In 2006, driven by an insatiable desire to purify water through the creation of oyster reefs in my native New York, I traveled halfway around the planet to Indonesia to study under the late, great Wolf Hilbertz. Hilbertz, I had heard, had developed a miraculous reef restoration technique that created self-repairing reefs/beach breaks that provided a sustainable fishing habitat and filtered water with coral and tropical waters and oysters in temperate waters. Since one oyster can filter 50 gallons of water per day, I was smitten. Not only that, his technique did not use plastic or concrete and the negative ions seemed to bolster the health of corals and oysters ravaged by global temperature rises, pollution and disease. Hilbertz was creating reefs by perfecting an accreation process originally developed in the mid-19th century by the inventor of the DC battery, British scientist Michael Faraday, who noticed a fluffy white precipitation when running electricity through water. This white fluffy substance, if grown properly, creates calcium carbonate – the substance that coral and shell are composed of – three times the strength of concrete, and the favorite substrate for both coral and oyster larvae to colonize for reefs worldwide. While I was studying in Gili Trawangan, an island with no fresh water supply and a single dirt road, I learned how to create the best shapes for reefs, maximizing water flow and also not getting destroyed by large waves and typhoons. I also learned how to make the perfect anode, how to scuba dive for broken shards of coral that would otherwise die and affix them to our structures, and most of all the importance of working in tandem with local communities to restore and preserve their depleting wild life, which for many of them was a staple for life, as they are fisherman. Wolf is pictured in this blog wearing his accreated shirt on our last night. He accreated this shirt in the 1970s in the Gulf of Mexico and only wore it on special occaisions. We stayed up late that night with our group, sharing drinks and visions. The next day when I was about to jump on a small boat for the mainland of Lombok, Wolf gave me one of his great bear hugs, looked me in the eye and said “Go for it, kiddo.” I knew then, I had officially become a member of the Global Coral Reef Alliance, which, with Wolf’s passing in 2007 of stomach cancer six months after meeting him, has been an awesome responsibility. I am the only one in my region licensed to create reefs using Wolf’s patented biorock technique, however I am licensed to build reefs all over the world. For the past four years I have taught at the New School for sustainable reef restoration where I teach about this concept as well as other sustainable reef restoration methods that do not use plastic or concrete.
So far, I have set up experiments at New York/New Jersey Bay Keeper, the River Project, The Cornell Marine Exchange, as well as built the first ever solar-powered biorock oyster reef in College Point, Queens with the director of the Global Coral Reef Alliance and Wolf’s longtime partner, Dr. Tom Goreau. With the Global Coral Reef Alliance, I have also shown my reef designs for beach breaks at the United Nations in conjunction with “small island developing states.”

I first came across uranium-infused glass in the Millville Art Museum in New Jersey. They have a fine collection of tableware made with uranium-infused pressed glass. As a side note, Millville was the hub for pressed glass in the 1880s. When it was discovered that uranium could be used to create nuclear bombs, all uranium was diverted from ornate glassware to bomb making. For example, it was used in the construction of Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon used in war. Since then, uranium has rarely been used for any other purpose. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium glass for tableware is nontoxic, but it does have a low geiger count. It glows under black light, mimicking the phosphor-essence of plankton. I have been using uranium-infused glass extensively at Brooklyn Glass this fall for my plankton sculptures. I think their geiger count must be pretty high by now… : ) See the below images of uranium-infused glass without and then with black light.

I decided to share this page from my sketchbook which is a collage of two of my favorite things. The first is Ozma of Oz because of her clarity, wisdom and rulership style–she goes around her kingdom with a magic wand, giving presents and having tea parties, ruling with a dainty fist filled with magical sparkles. I combined it with an illustration from my muse Ernst Haeckel, the amazing turn-of-the-century illustrator/scientist who not only accurately depicted plankton but successfully classified it and was in constant contact with his colleague, Charles Darwin. Pictured here, Ozma is thinking about plankton because “plankton is responsible for half the oxygen on our planet.”

Illustrated by Jno R. Neal, 1920.

I’ve started to create a series of works based on my disturbing realization that all of my plankton samples contain tiny UV-degraded plastics from water bodies around the world, some very remote. The first of this series was collected in February-March 2011 off the coast of Chile aboard Tara Oceans. The first of the La Boheme series is based on Tintinnids found in the deep sea off the coast of Chile. I am calling the piece La Boheme because like the opera it is about falling in love with something–in this case, the ocean–which you know may be sick or dying. The result is a series that resembles surreal beings from an alternate universe but is in fact depictions of oceanic plankton entwined with plastic.  The conclusion is a new awareness about our fate is intimately linked with that of our oceans.

This photograph was taken on board Tara Oceans. To me, these Tintinnids look like beautiful champagne glasses.

Posing as "La Boheme," in this case the internal structure of a Chilean Tintinnid in a toxic ocean.

Original working drawing for La Boheme, in this case Tintinnids ensnared in a ribbon of UV-degraded plastic.

Each time I look through the microscope at plankton, it is like looking into an alternative universe where gravity has a lot less impact. It is breathtaking! I am awed. However, the thing that is weighing heavily on my heart, no matter where I have collected plankton I have found microscopic strands of plastic and UV-degraded plastic in my plankton samples. So far I have done microscopy on plankton found in Dublin Bay, Miyako Islands in Okinawa, Siwa in Egypt and the Open Ocean off the coast of Chile. Here is a photograph of plankton clinging to a piece of plastic. Microscopy by yours truly, Mara.

Another detail of plankton clinging to plastic, this plankton was gathered off the coast of Chile.

I have started my journey in microscopy. Microscopy is taking pictures with microscopes. Last summer I worked with a TARA scientist in Dublin and with friends from the Skirball Institute,  Ben Bartel and Andrea Gomez, as well as with members of the newly formed public biosynthetic laboratory in Brooklyn, Genspace. In January 2011, I had the incredible opportunity to collect plankton in an oasis in Egypt’s Sahara Desert, just 30 miles from the Libyan border. The oasis was called Siwa and has a fairly large salt lake which is as salty as the Dead Sea. The salt lake has been separated from the ocean for tens of thousands of years. Because of its high salt content I had no idea what I would find. Behold! One of the most beautiful plankton yet. We named her Mascarati, because of her long Mascara-like body parts. Picture taken with a confocal microscope by Andrea Gomez. There is a good chance no one has ever seen a plankton like this before. Isn’t she gorgeous?

On the March vernal equinox of 2011 I had the honor of returning Flag 75, after having taken it on TARA OCEANS with me. Over the last 100 years, Flag 75 has traveled the world, including many stops in South America. Here is a photograph of me returning Flag 75 at the Explorers’ Club Annual Dinner. The dinner was held at the Waldorf=Astoria. After presenting the flag, a video I made from my expedition was screened. To watch the video please click on this link.

TARA OCEANS is a two-and-a-half-year expedition around the world in a sailboat named TARA, which is aluminum and specially made to break through ice, as well as sail in tropical waters. The mission of TARA OCEANS is to diagnose the health of our oceans and their relationship to climate change for future generations. The ship was once owned by Sir Peter Blake, who was killed by pirates on the ship. In fact, he was killed right where I collected plankton. But that’s jumping ahead. I should first say that last February I was lucky to be a visiting artist onboard TARA, off the coast of Chile. While onboard, I collected plankton which I was able to see while it was still alive under the ship’s microscope. The boat is currently owned by Etienne Bourgois, who is the son of Agnes B, the owner of the eponymous Agnes b clothing line. The below are photographs of TARA as well as of me collecting plankton on TARA.

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