Still, the idea of oysters in the canal (once other cleanup efforts have commenced) has always been an interesting idea for me. That is, until I read John Waldman's Heartbeats in the Muck, page 155, where he relays his experience with oysters in the canal:"Our expectations that young oysters would be seen are tempered by the generally poor results Longstretch has recorded elsewhere around the harbor with his project - none worse than in the Gowanus Canal. When he hung a sack of live oysters off a bulkhead there, not only were they dead upon his return two weeks later, by the shells had shrunk as well, perhaps because of acidity in the contaminated canal. Careful inspections of the large dead oyster shells now reveals many embryonic forms-apparent oyster spat-and we are excited until on closer examination all turn out to be slipper limpets. Oyster spat, once in place, are attached for life. But the shell of the limpet, a snail-like but highly flattened creature, slips sideways when pushed."
Wow. As Biggie said...
