Big News! Back to the Bays Awarded a $398,413.00 grant to expand work in Sag Harbor, Hampton Bays, and Quogue
We thank all of our local elected officials for their continued support of Back to the Bays, especially Southampton Town Councilman Michael Iasilli, for the role he played in supporting this specific funding request.
The Southampton Town Board recently passed a resolution authorizing a Water Quality Improvement Project grant to Cornell Cooperative Extension from the Southampton Town Community Preservation Fund. This $398,413 grant to support our “Back to the Bays Multi-Species Ecosystem-Based Approach to Habitat Restoration and Water Quality Improvement” project will be matched by an additional $335,535, making this a $733,948 effort that will get underway this spring!
CCE’s Back to the Bays Initiative has a history of successful grant projects under this funding source. Over the past 5 years these awards have helped make the restoration work conducted within our 5-acre Southampton Trustee designated shellfish and eelgrass sanctuary possible. Building upon the successes experienced at this site, this new grant will ensure both the continuation of the bay scallop nursery, spat-on-shell oyster reef deployments, eelgrass plantings, and hard calm seedings at the Tiana sanctuary, while enabling the planning, permitting, and capacity building work required to scale up efforts at our Quogue and Sag Harbor Stewardship Sites!
This project will result in Back to the Bays being able to:
Produce hundreds of thousands of shellfish to be planted back to our bays
Identify new eelgrass and coastal habitat receiving areas
Integrate classroom and place-based learning opportunities in local schools to engage students in our work
Offer a wide variety of Back to the Bays Stewardship Sessions to involve the public
Through this grant, we’ll be able to expand our eelgrass restoration efforts in the Peconic and Shinnecock Bays
We are extremely grateful to the Town of Southampton, specifically Supervisor Moore and the Town Council, the CPF Department, Parks and Recreation Department, and Town Trustees for continuing to support our work. We also would like to thank all of you who wrote in letters of support during the public comment period! Without these grant funds, your support, and the partnership and coordination by the Town of Southampton, we would not be able to make such strides in enhancing the health of our local waters.
We also look forward to partnering with the East Quogue, Hampton Bays, and Sag Harbor School Districts; Quogue Village; Quogue Wildlife Refuge; Kidd Squid Brewing Co.; Hampton Jitney; Sag Harbor Village; and Rooted Hospitality, who we’ll be joining forces with to fulfill the various elements of this project and related grant match requirements..
Preparations for the official kick off of this project this spring are underway, and we hope to announce some more exciting news related to our expansion plans on the South Fork soon. We will report on new developments, and look forward to sharing more good news as it relates to this project in the months to come!
We’ll be expanding our Tiana Bayside operations, and establishing new sites in Quogue and Sag Harbor to support even more shellfish + habitat restoration, and community programming in these areas in 2026!
Our spat-on-shell oyster reef efforts will be scaled up, through increased production and the addition of new shellfish nursery sites to our grow out network.
Shoreline restoration plantings at Long Beach in Sag Harbor/Noyack, and additional sites will take place using plants we propagate at our coastal plant nursery locations throughout the Town of Southampton.
For now, we encourage you to sign up as a Back to the Bays Steward for first access to announcements and stewardship session registration. Check back on our Sag Harbor, Quogue, and Hampton Bays Stewardship site pages for upcoming volunteer and involvement opportunities.
2026 is off to a great start!