This allowed sunlight to penetrate to the bay bottom so eelgrass and other foundations of the food chain could thrive.

Where the jet ski sank, perhaps one-tenth of a mile off the island, the bay bottom is above a grown man's head.

The company owns 21 square miles of bay bottom in Great South Bay, he said.

She made him admire the weird coral castles which had built themselves up from the bay bottom, hundreds of feet into the air.

The barge settled on the bay bottom not long ago, and divers had to refloat it.

The work, begun over the summer, will take at least two years, but could go on longer and cover more bay bottom with more money.

Dropped overboard, the device drove the tube nearly two feet into the bay bottom, providing 200 or more years of evidence about past underwater environments.

The bay bottom still produces a good number of quahogs that could be used to seed less productive areas, he said.

Paid for by the county, the program will densely plant selected areas of the bay bottom with millions of juvenile scallops.

The dredges, he said, also turned over the bay bottom so seed clams deposited later would be able to burrow in.