Forty tons of oyster shells recycled from the Clermont Oyster Bar in Lake City were placed along an oyster bank in Charlotte Harbor this week to attract oyster larvae and hopefully form a new oyster reef in Turtle Bay.
The addition of more than 1.2 million oyster shells to the reef was the third batch coordinated by the Coastal Conservation Association Florida in a low-tech, high-reward effort to restore not just the oyster population but all the beneficial things the creatures do to recondition impaired waters.
“A single oyster has the ability to filter up to 50 gallons of water per day,” said Logan Kennovin, a CCA assistant director. “Juvenile oysters will begin to attach themselves to the loose, recycled shell and then grow into large, adult oysters.”
Collecting, cleaning, and recycling clam and oyster shells to restore and create new reefs is a growing volunteer movement in Florida to enhance and protect coastal ecosystems, improve water quality, and protect shorelines from erosion.
Oyster larvae begin their lives as free-swimming creatures in the water column, searching for suitable hard surfaces to settle on. If not attaching to existing oyster shells, it might be rocks, docks, pilings, or mangrove roots.
Once they attach, the small critters are known as "spat” — quite possibly because of what oyster larvae look like as they grow from minuscule to tiny.
Of course, the most beneficial attachment sites for both the larvae and the environment are existing oyster reefs, which provide a complex habitat that supports a diverse array of marine life and enhances an area’s marine environment.
Oyster reefs are essential for maintaining healthy marine ecosystems. They offer habitat and protection for numerous species, improve water quality through filtration, help prevent erosion by stabilizing shorelines, and reduce turbidity, which aids in seagrass growth.
If larvae settle on less ideal surfaces like docks or pilings, they may still grow, but they might not contribute as significantly to the ecosystem as they would if they were part of a larger reef structure.
Similar programs include "Shells for Shorelines" by Tampa Bay Watch and the OysterCorps in the Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary Program.
After eating what’s in them, oyster shells are dried for six months to kill any potential pathogens. They are hauled to the loading site — on Wednesday it took two dump trucks to carry the 40 tons of shells — and transported by a barge equipped with a small backhoe that scoops the shells into just the right spot.
The CCA has dropped recycled oyster shells at the reef three previous times over two years. The local guides shuttling the media to watch this trip commented among themselves how they’ve discovered fishing in the area has improved.
Frank Gidus, a CCA director in Florida, said 160 tons of oysters have been deployed at the Turtle Bay reef, which is under a federal permit allowing the organization to do the work.
The CCA was founded in 1977 after commercial overfishing along the Texas coast decimated redfish and speckled trout populations. CCA Florida became the fifth state chapter in 1985.
Sign up for WGCU's monthly environmental newsletter, the Green Flash, today.
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.
