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Ngati Whatua o Orakei plans to use mussels to clean up its home awa.
Okahu Bay was degraded as a food source for the hapu a century ago when a sewage pipe was constructed across the bay.
Since then it has also suffered from high sedimentation, high levels of heavy metals and other industrial pollutants typical in an urban setting.
On Saturday it will lay reef restoration beds of mussels brought up from Ngati Paoa in Kaiaua.
Project manager Richelle Kahui-McConnell says it’s associated with a wider plan by the group Revive Our Gulf to restore the mussel beds of the Hauraki Gulf.
She says over the past seven years the hapu has been building up a body of knowledge about environmental health indicators and the sort of science that can be used to restore the mauri of the bay.
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