Peconic Estuary

Riverhead’s sewage treatment plant upgrade and the innovative wastewater reuse partnership with the county golf course garnered accolades yesterday from a high-ranking federal Environmental...

Rust tide has spread across the Peconic Bay and all of its waterways over the past week, posing a lethal threat to fish and marine life in the estuary.

Scientists have identified a prolific plant growth overspreading a portion of the Peconic River as mosquito fern, an invasive, rapidly reproducing aquatic plant that thickly covers the surface of a waterbody.

“The Peconic Estuary is a super unique ecosystem with lots of wildlife, and it's in the heart of downtown,” said Holly Williams, who graduated from Riverhead High School in 2011. “People are there all the time. It's a good opportunity for them to learn about what they see there.”

The East End towns and Suffolk County have penned an agreement establishing the Peconic Estuary Protection Committee dedicated to the restoration of the federally recognized ecosystem.

County Executive Steve Bellone called a press conference on the shore of the Peconic River in Riverhead to say the health of the Peconic Estuary needs federal aid in order to be restored.

As complaints begin to flow in about the tide of dead fish washing ashore on Flanders Bay beaches, local officials are making plans to remove at least the biggest piles of fish carcasses from local beaches, including the county park.

A fish kill of major proportions is underway in the Peconic Estuary, the result of a harmful algal bloom known as 'mahogany tide.'

Town hopes fishermen with drag net capabilities can remove live bait fish from the bay before they all die off because oxygen levels in the water are too low to sustain life.

The Suffolk County Health Department is warning residents against eating shellfish harvested from tributaries of the Peconic Estuary due to the presence of a marine biotoxin known to cause paralytic shellfish poisoning, a serious and potentially lethal illness in humans.