PROJECTS
2025 Season: Great South Bay
During the 2025 season (June to November) we focused on planting sites near Heckscher State Park. July was a small test of planting during mid-summer; in October we planted an acre, and in November we over-seeded the same acre quadrant.
Permits were obtained from The Nature Conservancy, the owner of the bottom land we are planting in.
An in-water pre-planting assessment was done prior to the July 2025 planting to determine suitable marine sediment quality, affirm absence of eelgrass and to gather water quality data.
Additional pre-planting assessments included engineering a repeatable drone flight pattern to obtain year-over-year high resolution imagery, drop camera images and mapping analysis.
2026 Season: Great South Bay
Our 2026 season will start in April. Our focus will continue to be the planting sites near Heckscher State Park. A third site will be planted in April as a test of early season planting.
Permits will be obtained from The Nature Conservancy and additional efforts will be made to secure permits from local municipalities.
Scientific assessments will be conducted of the 2025 plantings to determine existence of sprouts. Sprouts will be counted using randomized 1/3m2 quadrants either in-water and/or using a drop camera. In addition, the drone mission that was done in the fall will be repeated using the same flight pattern. Ground truthing will use the 1/3m2 quadrants observations.
SAVE Environmental Restoration Sites
Drone footage just east of Fire Island Pines, July 2025. The dark areas show meadow expansion from last year. Lat/Long location information available.
Borghardt Photography