The NY/NJ Baykeeper is deploying 'castles' near the Naval Weapons Station Earle pier in the Raritan Bay that serves as a home to a growing oyster colony. Thomas P. Costello , Asbury Park Press
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MIDDLETOWN — A growing reef in Raritan Bay is what environmentalists hope will be a sanctuary for fish and ocean life as well as protection for structures along the Jersey Shore.
Divers with NY/NJ Baykeeper, an organization devoted to protecting and restoring coastal ecosystems, set out Tuesday from the Leonardo State Marina with a boat loaded with concrete-and-shell blocks and clam shells covered in juvenile oysters. Their mission, once out in the bay, was for divers to lay the blocks on the bay's soft floor in four- by four-foot wide pyramids.
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These blocks, or so-called "castles," would serve as homes for the developing oysters, which on Tuesday speckled the castle blocks. 
These new oyster reefs, Baykeeper staff said, would attract a rich diversity of marine life and serve an important role in reducing the force of waves in future storms.
"It's like a speed bumps to break that energy up," said Meredith Comi, restoration program director for NY/NJ Baykeeper. 
The reefs, which run parallel to the shore off Naval Weapons Station Earle, will therefore help protect the station's structures, she said. 
The naval station took $50 million worth of damage during superstorm Sandy. As a result, its commanders turned to oyster reefs for future protection. 
Other military bases are taking similar measures. Elgin Air Force Base Reservation in Florida and Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia are also trying to protect their facilities through reefs, according to the Navy Times.
"It's our version of a coral reef really," said Comi. "It provides a lot of homes, habitat and some species can only come and reproduce in this estuary, in these reefs."
Oysters help filter the water and also attract juvenile fish, crabs, shrimp and snails to the reefs, she said. 
"The diversity difference between an area that has nothing and an area with some kind of habitat is tremendous," Comi said.
These natural shorelines, called "living shorelines" by proponents, are also often more effective at preventing erosion and mitigating storm damage than bulkheads, according to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection.
In 2017, U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone Jr., a Democrat from Monmouth County, introduced a bill that would give grants worth $100 million over five years for coastal communities to build oyster reefs and recreate wetlands. A similar bill sponsored by California Sen. Kamala Harris was introduced to Congress on June 5, but the bill remains in the congressional Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
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Regardless, staff with NY/NJ Baykeeper will continue seeding the Raritan Bay with young oysters and building more reef habitat with their shell and concrete blocks.
In the past, the bay was covered in oyster reefs, said Comi. 
A juvenile oyster clings to the side of a “castle” that will be transported by the NY/NJ Baykeeper to the "Living Shoreline" off Naval Weapons Station Earle Tuesday, July 16, 2019. It is part of an ongoing effort to restore aquaculture in Raritan Bay.
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