[ Background Conversations ]
>> Quite a few organizations are working
on Bronx River restoration.
I think the singular focus of Rocking The Boat's work
and perhaps what makes us somewhat different
than the others is, is our purpose is really
to restore the people of the South Bronx,
and through that restoration restore the rivers.
[Background sounds] Our whole idea is to use real life
to teach and to learn through.
We do it all through boats and water, and so we build real,
wooden boats from scratch.
We then teach kids everything they need to know in order
to use those boats, from navigation to sailing.
These are not things that any of them have ever done
in any other aspects of their lives.
[ Water Sounds ]
[ Horn Beeping ]
[ Music ]
>> In my neighborhood, there's drug dealers,
there's drug users, there's drug abusers,
and there's more liquor stores
than there are schools in Hunts Point.
And you got hookers up
and down the block when, when you see them.
So it's just like, you know,
it's not a place to raise a, raise a family.
You know, Rocking the Boat came to my school and they,
you know, they offered their program, and I was like, oh,
rowing a boat, okay, that's nothing.
I just thought it was rowing boats.
So, guys, get in the ready position.
That, that's what you got to do.
So, now she push forward
and now you're going to push forward.
Soon as I got in open water,
it was like a whole other world.
You don't even recognize Hunts Point, from the water.
It looks beautiful when you're on the water.
You're more relaxed.
When the first, first time I got on the water I was relaxed,
I was, you know, I was not as hyper, as I usually am,
I was just, you know, calm.
That's when I realized, like, nature to me is just,
it should be my partner.
[Water sounds]
>> I got it!
>> All of the science and restoration we do
on the Bronx River is run through a filter
which asks is this work dynamic, powerful,
medium to do youth development work with middle school
and high school age kids.
If it's not, we don't do it.
So you got to be very careful pulling this up.
We are growing mussels and seaweed,
both of which eat nutrients and filter nitrates.
We're working with the University of Connecticut
and growing what's called Gracilaria, a species of seaweed.
And the purpose of these is
to treat sewage once it's been released, in this case,
from the Hunts Point Waste Water Treatment Plant,
which releases water far from clean.
>> So you put it down until you don't see [inaudible].
And then put it up very slowly, with the liner.
[Water sounds]
>> So who wants to start?
We got two calipers, so maybe you can take turns going 0,1,
2, 3.
>> 1, 2.
>> We are also working with the National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration to grow the mussels from a 20
by 20 raft with lines hanging down.
The mussels are growing along those lines.
>> Oh...look at that.
>> Carefully.
>> We'd like to get some numbers
for what an individual mussel is capable of filtering
out of the water, and how they grow,
dependent on what's in the water.
>> And it'll grow mussels and then nothing happens.
>> Right. And then, we also have many thousands of mussels
on the raft, so we can use some extrapolation techniques
to see, well, if one mussel or hundred mussels can do this,
maybe a thousand mussels are able to do this.
And if we were to set up multiple rafts,
how much could that impact on water quality issues.
>> Have a good life!
>> So we've really learned to become mussel farmers.
My wife jokes that we're just getting the mussels
to do all the work for us.
And she's actually not wrong about that.
That's exactly how it works and that really is what,
what green research is all about.
[Boat sounds]
>> This is my fifth year in Rocking the Boat,
and while my time in Rocking the Boat,
it has changed my perspective on where I want to go.
I want to be a law enforcement agent,
but for the environment.
Environmental protection basically.
To make sure that, you know,
people are treating nature the way they want
to treat a person.
Good.