The health of Tampa Bay has been on the rebound in recent years. But there's still a lot to be done to bring back the natural fisheries. So groups of volunteers are spending their mornings helping to create oyster reefs in an offshore nature preserve near Riverview.
The mission of the non-profit group Tampa Bay Watch this day is simple: shovel 14 tons of oyster shells into pvc tubes, bag them and transport them six miles to an island in the middle of Tampa Bay.There, living oysters will attach themselves to the shells and naturally filter the bay water.
Today, they're getting some help. A busload of students from Tampa's King High School rumbles into the parking lot, bring a lot of eager young hands are ready to whittle down the 14-ton mountain. Tampa Bay Watch habitat restoration director Serra Herndon gives them a few tips."It's a great project, we really appreciate you guys helping out" said Herndon. "We can show you what to do, we are limited by the number of PVC tubes that we have and shovels, so you're going to have to find a niche, find a job, rotate in and out, pair up, work in groups."
Also giving the kids a few tips is Betsy Ilfeld.
"You take the oyster shells and you put them inside one of these tubes that has a bag over it. You turn it over, pull the tube out, and you have your container of oysters and you tie the end", Ilfeld explained.
This repetitive work is seemingly endless this gray morning. They haul the bags to a boat at a dock at the end of the parking lot, where it will be taken to a nature preserve in the middle of Tampa Bay.
Ilfeld says they're encasing the shells in sturdy webbing because otherwise, waves from storms will just scatter the oysters on the bottom of the bay.
"Because when they tried tried laying them down loose, they found out the storms came over and flattened them. So they had very little value in terms of wave attenuation and collecting sediment. So then they went to this method", said Ilfeld. "So if you have a Charley or a Frances or a Jeanne or a Wilma, it all stays in one place - where they want it to be."
They're going to the Shultz Nature Preserve, just offshore of TECO's Big Bend power plant. It's final destination is the colorfully-named Whiskey Stump Key.
"You brought a jug of money, left it on a stump during Prohibition, and lo and behold, your money disappeared and whiskey showed up", said Ilfeld.
The whiskey runners are long gone, replaced by boaters like Josh Lundy.
Lundy pulls up a Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission flat-bottomed skiff to the dock. He's loading up the shells to bring them out to Whiskey Stump Key. Today, he'll make the 12-mile roundtrip four times.
"[The Oysters] take the calcium from these shells, and they use to to grow their own shells. And by doing that, they make the oyster bar bigger and stronger", said Lundy. "They're pretty important. They clean the water - they're filter feeders. So any of the small particulates that are in the water from fish, birds, us, they filter out."
That natural cleaning of the bay is the reason why people like Ilfeld are volunteering their mornings in this dock lot.
"Because over 15 or 20 years, you've seen the bay improve", Ilfeld pointed out. "And you know it's not the crappy green it used to be. They had to stop dumping our sewage it, but you come back 5 years later or 10 years later and you see this stuff is actually growing and it actually works."
And people like Ilfeld will keep volunteering their time to hack away at a mountain of fossilized oyster shells, because they feel it will make a difference.