Measure Oysters Calendar Schedule	January 21, 2001, Sunday Late Edition - Final Section: 14LI Page: 4 Column: 3 Desk: Long Island Weekly Desk Length: 1585 words LONG ISLAND JOURNAL; Marine Dreams: an Oyster in Every Plot By MARCELLE S. FISCHLER Columnist, Long Island Journal The New York Times THE cheerleader for clams, oysters and scallops was standing in the middle of the algae laboratory, holding up a flask half full of a concoction from Tahiti that looked like liquid butterscotch in one hand and a glass of white wine in the other. The possibilities are limitless, he rambled on excitedly, toasting the wonders of the Cornell Cooperative Extension Shellfish Hatchery at the Suffolk County Marine Environmental Learning Center in Southold. Want to grow designer clams? Sign right up, he said. Interested in larvae cultures? The technologies are all here. Want to be a master shellfish gardener? You've come to the right place. This barker for growing molluscan species in one's very own underwater test plot is Kim Tetrault, 40, Cornell's hatchery manager for the past six growing seasons. To teach culturing, spawning, planting and monitoring shellfish, he recently jumpstarted the Southold Project in Aquaculture Training with an open house. ''This is not a private club for those who want to cash in from raw bars,'' Mr. Tetrault said as he offered freshly shucked clams and oysters served on the half shell free for visitors to taste at back of the room. ''This is a community effort for the betterment of the town and everybody in the town. That's a critical component and that's why it's going to work.'' For his shellfish restoration and information gathering effort, Mr. Tetrault is targeting schoolteachers, students, retirees, civic and church groups and folks who remember the days when the bay was so covered in scallops they risked getting their toes snapped walking in the water. Lessons include seeding and tending shellfish gardens by the hatchery in the canals in Cedar Beach creek in Cedar Beach County Park, research opportunities and monthly workshops that began Jan. 17 with a two-hour course on the five flavors of algae Mr. Tetrault is firing up. ''It's the perfect way to start,'' Mr. Tetrault said. ''We have to grow algae. Algae are what all these critters in here eat, and they eat that their whole lives through. Without growing algae, we can't go to the next step.'' With it, he can grow shellfish and he can grow them fast. In the wild, clams, oysters and scallops spend the winter in suspended animation, waiting for spring to come. In the hatchery, Mr. Tetrault feeds his invertebrates at 17 degrees Celsius; tricking them into thinking it is spring. He can spawn scallops in January if he wants to, he said, though his production protocol slates oysters as this year's first batch. And instead of spawning twice a year, as in nature, the well-fed bi-valves spawn five times a year in the hatchery, using water that gets heated as it flows in from the creek. Last year, Mr. Tetrault produced 8 million clams. If enough participants sign on as stewards, he said, he'd be happy to increase that to 20 million this year. ''We don't cheat nature.'' Mr. Tetrault said. ''We aren't truly artificial. We do manipulate, but we work as closely as possible with the natural scene. Nature works.'' But the 1938 hurricane wiped out about a third of the bay's oysters and clams and then over fishing and pollution continued to deplete local waters. And the brown tide first discovered in the Peconic Estuary in 1985 killed the bay scallops that were long known for their special taste. Aquaculture, or shellfish farming, is believed to be the oldest fishing industry on the Island. The new training program may help the environment and hasten a shellfish renaissance. ''It addresses water quality because these animals filter the water all the time,'' Mr. Tetrault said. ''A good healthy shellfish population maintains the water quality.'' A brood stock, an adult spawning population of shellfish, provides seeds to maintain the wild stock. And when clam beds are tended like a garden to keep out crabs and other predators, survival rates increase, bolstering the chances of developing a parent stock and edible-size clams. In the hatchery, the larvae swim in a series of open-ended silos inside large bathtubs called downwellers that the algae-rich water flows through. They grow into uniformly smooth cultured clams with a visible genetic mark and flat-topped, deep-bottomed meaty oysters resistant to juvenile oyster disease. From the hatchery, the shellfish are moved to upwellers in the nursery outside until they are large enough to be transferred to the creek or bay. It takes 18 to 24 months to grow an oyster to adult size and 3 to 5 years for a clam. Scallops, the trickiest to grow, have a 2-year lifecycle. Oysters have a 10- to 15-year lifespan; clams can go 30 to 40 years. Mr. Tetrault, a former carpenter, lives by the hatchery and canoes to work when the water isn't frozen. ''I discovered as a lark that shellfish aquaculture had so many of the components of electrical, plumbing and carpentry work,'' he said. ''For me, it was a perfect fit.'' The canals at Cedar Beach Park will be closed to commercial and recreational fishing and shell fishing for the aquaculture project. Gardeners will be able to grow 50,000 to 100,000 clams on the bottom and caged oysters overhead with scallop sites along the lines of each plot. For a $50 donation, Mr. Tetrault said, workshop participants can share a test plot. Master gardeners who pay $150 will be allotted private gear like oyster cages and predatory nets to train in their own on-site garden. While they get to keep 50 percent of the production, the other half goes back to Cornell to reseed the bay. For $250, program ''ambassadors'' will be given equipment and seed to transfer to local creeks, creating a relay. They get to keep 75 percent of the production, but it cannot be sold commercially. If the shellfish beds off their docks are closed due to high bacteria levels, Mr. Tetrault said, the gardeners can eventually bring the shellfish back to Cedar Beach Creek to depurate. ''The whole point of this project and the whole point of my job has never been and will never be to produce food for people,'' Mr. Tetrault said. ''It is to provide the parents for the food that you eat from the bay.'' Mr. Tetrault said that down the line he expected that aquacultural savvy would result in job opportunities and entrepreneurial spin-offs. That would be great, but it's not his goal. ''What do we want out of it?'' Mr. Tetrault asked. ''We just want our bays back. Like in the glory days.''