A New Jersey community is coming together to protect its future, and a superhero marine organism commonly found on menus across the country is coming to its aid.

As detailed by Inside Climate News, a coalition of environmental, government, and volunteer groups in Long Beach Township is using discarded oyster shells to construct a reef that will help prevent bayside marshland erosion.

The project should also naturally improve water quality in the bay, as builders will attach baby oysters to the recycled oyster shell wall to establish a new colony.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, just one oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water each day, helping prevent a nutrient imbalance. When excess nutrients end up contaminating water sources, toxic algal blooms can develop.

"The concept is as old as the ages," project manager Angela Andersen, the township's sustainability director, told ICN, referring to oysters as "magnificent."

"Oysters are coastal ecosystem engineers," added American Littoral Society Executive Director Tim Dillingham, whose nonprofit organization is involved with multiple oyster reef projects that could protect coastlines threatened by a warming climate.

While the Earth naturally cycles through ice ages and warmer cycles over long periods due to orbit variations, human activities are warming the planet at an "unprecedented rate," causing sea levels to rise and supercharging extreme weather, as NASA explains.

As for New Jersey, the state's Climate Change Resource Center says its shore levels have risen an astounding 18 inches since the early 1900s — a rate more than two times the global mean.

However, oyster projects can help limit the effects of rising seas, even as many policymakers and individuals begin favoring clean or low-carbon energy sources over dirty fuels — the primary human-induced cause of rising global temperatures.

From New York to California, initiatives are promoting the restoration of oyster populations that offer some protection from wind and waves and provide economic benefits.

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In New Jersey, the shellfish industry pulls in an estimated $790 million each year, and volunteers have been an integral part of oyster restoration efforts.

"Its resurgence is giving us an entirely new blueprint for the future," Andersen told ICN.

For the Long Beach Township project, community members also help with the recycled reef project, donating, collecting, and sorting shells, as the publication reported.

"The shore is changing — I've seen it in my lifetime," said Toby Eisenberg, who owns Delaware Avenue Oyster House and donates her restaurant's oyster shells. "Anything that I can do, even if it's tiny, it's I think my responsibility."

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