The Suffolk County Legislature on Tuesday unanimously approved expanded rules for leasing hundreds of new acres of Peconic and Gardiners bays for aquaculture, amid concern by boaters that the program would limit recreational uses.
The county’s aquaculture lease program, first approved by the legislature in 2009, has helped spawn a burgeoning and environmentally friendly oyster-farming industry on Long Island, with about 780 acres already leased to 55 different developers. Only around 300 of those acres are actively farmed, the county said.