Governor Andrew M. Cuomo recently announced $2.05 million in funding to support the NY Sea Grant program, which advances an array of cutting edge research to improve the health of our oceans. The federal budget proposes to defund Sea Grant programs nationwide, decimating vital research on ocean health and water quality at a time when it is needed most. The state funding will allow NY Sea Grant to expand their critical work across Long Island. The investment will fund a variety of projects to address brown tide and harmful algal blooms, including the cultivation of clam and oyster populations, which filter and improve water quality. More information is available here.

VIDEO of the remarks is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h264 format) here.

B-roll of the Governor deploying clams in Shinnecock Bay is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h264 format) here.

AUDIO of the event is available here.

PHOTOS of the event will be available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor’s remarks is available below.

Thank you very much. What a pleasure, what a beautiful day. The state is in charge of the weather today. The county tried to take credit, no way. First to you County Executive, I work obviously with county executives all across the state. I was in the federal government for eight years. I worked with county executives all across the nation. Leadership matters and competence in government matters, especially today. In Steve Bellone you have not only one of the finest in the state but one of the finest in this nation. It's always my pleasure to partner with him. My colleagues from Albany, Steve Englebright and Fred Thiele, let's give them a round of applause. They did a great budget and a great program and I want to thank them. Supervisor Romaine and Jay Schneiderman, thank you very much for being with us today. Adrienne Esposito, who's just a great, great advocate, pleasure to be with you. Commissioner Basil Seggos, who's got one of the toughest jobs in the state, Commissioner of DEC, but he's doing one of the best jobs. Give him a round of applause. Dr. Chris Gobler, who really is a pioneer and he's brilliant, and he's attacking what is the most vital problem that we have in the state of New York, if not the country, so let's give him a round of applause.

At one time, Bill Clinton had a line that he used to use. He used to say, "It's about the economy, stupid." It wasn't the most artful comment. We tell our kids not to call people stupid but it really summed up the importance of the issue. There are so many things going on, and that line said the number one issue was the economy. At that time in this country, it was about the economy. Long Island, we have a lot of issues going on. There's no doubt. But it is about the water quality of Long Island. That is the number one issue for Long Island. We're dealing with everything. But it is about water quality. It's about the water quality that we drink. It's about our aquifer and it's the water quality that we use as a recreational basis, a tourism basis, and it's related. There is no issue more important than that to Suffolk and to Nassau, period. It doesn't mean we don't have other issues, transportation, infrastructure, Long Island Rail Road, sure. But the water quality to me is critical.

We've been working with your County Executive, with local towns. We have to have an all-out attack on the water quality on Long Island and we have to give everything that we possibly can. We have the most aggressive and robust program that has ever been designed. We're spending hundreds of millions of dollars and I am proud of it. But we have more to do. The water quality on Long Island, the water we drink, from a health issue, is critical. The geographic configuration of the island, where it's basically sand, it's a high water table, and everything winds up in the aquifer and it has been for years. During one time on Long Island, one time in this nation, we were a heavy manufacturing economy. We had Grumman and heavy manufacturers. And they left the stain of the Industrial Era, and it now is in the water. We don’t even know what we don’t know about the water. We’re now finding contaminants in the water and identifying contaminants that are dangerous to health that were not even on the scale before. We’ve been working with the federal government. In some ways, it’s infuriating. They can’t tell you this list a list of chemicals you should test for and this is a list of concentrations that are dangerous. It’s constantly evolving as we learn more and more, but we know that we have 99 State Superfund sites on Long Island. And we know that they have to be cleaned up because they pose a dangerous. We have 85 inactive landfills, but they’re landfills that were not build with the modern technology, so they’re continuing to leech in the aquifer. We know that we have a sewer system that is not up to capacity. We have sceptic systems that are failing. The County Executive is exactly right. Sewer systems are not the sexiest things to talk about all the time – he makes it sexy when Steve Bellone talks about it – but only Steve can make a sewer system sexy, I’ll tell you that much. We are partnering with the county. We have a $400 million plan that we’re working on now to put in sewer systems. We have other plans across Nassau to do the exact same thing and we just announced the $2.5 billion program, and I thank my Legislative colleagues, and this is about clean water infrastructure. Part of that program will give a $10,000 rebate for homeowners to replace or update their septic system, so that’s going to be critical. We are also doing research and development because we all agree we need to learn more because we have to get ahead of this problem faster. We understand that the nitrogen that is coming from the inadequate sewer systems winds up in our coastal waters and then it starts to wreak havoc. Stony Brook has done a fantastic done on their research, and I’d like to give them a round of applause.

Today, we’re talking about a specific manifestation of the problem – which is the brown tide – the brown tide is relatively new, right, but it is troubling and in many ways just a continuation of the degradation of the environment and the manifestation of that in our water systems. The brown tide actually accelerates the cycle of decline, it kills eel grass, it kills shellfish. Once you start to kill off the shellfish population, they don’t have the concentration to reproduce. The brown tides have been coming earlier and they’ve been getting worse. The ultimate answer is to reduce the nitrogen, which takes you back to the strategy that we talked about before, sewer systems, et cetera, but we want to be tackling this from every angle. And what we saw today is a very aggressive and creative approach to the problem.

But we want to be attacking this from every angle. And what we saw today is a very aggressive and creative approach to the problem. Which is, shellfish, clams, oysters, at the appropriate concentration, can help prevent a brown tide from reaching a dangerous concentration level. Once a brown tide gets too thick with algae, the clams and the oysters can’t function. But before it gets to that point, they can be very effective in filtering water. The Stony Brook Research Center has done seeding programs, many of the towns have done seeding programs for shellfish. We know that it works. And we know that it works well. We just have to bring it up to scale.

Today we’re announcing that we’re going to do $2 million dollars to Stony Brook Research Center, and for the project that we’re talking about today. That $2 million will bring to scale just what we were doing today, which was growing and seeding clams and oysters through the Sea Grant Program.

But we have to do even more than that. We discussed today that you would need about 30 million clams to be an effective filtration device for the western side of Shinnecock Bay. This is not just Shinnecock Bay. This is the Great South Bay, it can be the Peconic at times. It’s all over Long Island. So my challenge to our local officials while we were on the boat was, we know this works, let’s really step it up and let’s form a partnership that is aggressive. And let’s talk about reproducing and seeding hundreds of millions of clams and really get ahead of this issue and make a significant difference, and make a significant difference quickly.

We’ve been talking about it for a long time, but we have to get to the action phase, and significant action, because the clock is against us. You look at how this environmental degradation has been keeping pace, it is now ahead of our rate of remediation. So we do have to get aggressive about it, and we have to step up scale. The $2 million will be a good start, but I said to the County Executive and Jay Schneiderman and Ed Romaine, you find more facilities that can do the breeding and the growing of the oysters and the clams, and we will fund whatever you can setup. And we will get to hundreds of millions of clams and oysters. They act as a filtration device, they’re good for the economy, there’s all sorts of benefits. We just have to do it. We just have to make it happen.

And that’s where government comes in. And as the County Executive said, that’s the art form of governing. You know, for a lot of years, people thought governing is about talking. We’re past the talking phase. We’re into the doing phase, and we’re aggressively into the doing phase. Because at the end of the day it gets very simple. It is about making this place a better place. And we’ve been given a gift of life, and we’ve been put on this planet for a certain period of time, and the ultimate question for all of us is, did you use your time to make this place better? I did a commencement the other day to high school students, and I said, for you this is all very complicated when you’re young. What should I be? What school should I go to? I said, you’re old like me, it gets very simple. There’s one question. Did I do good things? And did I leave this place better than I found it?

We’re near the Shinnecock Reservation. Native Americans have a beautiful expression. We did not inherit the earth from our parents, we are borrowing it from our children. When we turn this land over to our children, there can be no brown tide. There can be no excess nitrogen in the water. The clams have to be back, the oysters have to be back, the fisheries have to be back. We’re going to leave them Long Island better, cleaner, safer than we found Long Island. That’s our obligation, and we’re going to make it happen.

Thank you, and God bless you.