Moriches Bay ( ) is a

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into ''coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons'') ...

system on the south shore of Long Island, New York. The name Moriches comes from Meritces, a Native American who owned land on Moriches Neck. Two townships in Suffolk, New York ( Brookhaven and the

Southampton Southampton () is a port city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire built-up area, which also covers Po ...

) share its shoreline. Moriches Bay is east of the Mastic Narrows and

Great South Bay The Great South Bay is a lagoon situated between Long Island and Fire Island, in the State of New York. It is about long and has an average depth of 4 feet 3 inches and is 20 feet at its deepest. It is protected from the Atlantic Ocean by Fire ...

and west of Shinnecock Bay. The bay is east of New York City. Moriches Bay has a body of water of of aquatic environment. This includes Moneybogue Bay and Quantuck Bay, its salt marshes, dredged material islands, and intertidal flats. This body of water is between the

Outer barrier The Outer Barrier, also known as the Long Island and New York City barrier islands, refers to the string of barrier islands that divide the lagoons south of Long Island, New York from the Atlantic Ocean. These islands include Long Beach Barrier ...

islands and Long Island mainland. Its flow comes from the Moriches and Shinnecock Inlets) The western boundary of this bay is the Smith Point Bridge; the eastern boundary is the eastern edge of Quantuck Bay. This bayside habitat includes the tidal creeks and

marshes A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found at ...

feeding into Moriches Bay from the Long Island mainland. A thriving habitat off the Atlantic Ocean, the Moriches Bay is used by Long Islanders for local fishing. It is a natural habitat for shellfish, migrating and wintering waterfowl, colonial nesting

waterbirds A water bird, alternatively waterbird or aquatic bird, is a bird that lives on or around water. In some definitions, the term ''water bird'' is especially applied to birds in freshwater ecosystems, although others make no distinction from seabi ...

, beach-nesting birds, migratory shorebirds, raptors, and rare plants. The

and Moriches Bay seabeds up to the barrier beach are owned by the towns through a grant by the British monarch long before the existence of the United States. It has been repeatedly adjudicated (even to the U.S. Supreme Court) that the land grants in the Dongan (Governor of New York) patents (Islip, Brookhaven, Southampton and East Hampton Towns, 1686) are valid. However, since 1968 the federal government has been attempting to take title of and lay claim to, by

adverse possession Adverse possession, sometimes colloquially described as "squatter's rights", is a legal principle in the Anglo-American common law under which a person who does not have legal title to a piece of property—usually land ( real property)—ma ...

, the bay bottoms of Islip and Brookhaven towns extending outward from the barrier beach.

References

{{reflist Brookhaven, New York Lagoons of New York (state) Southampton (town), New York Bays of Suffolk County, New York

See also

References