A water quality improvement project continues in the waters of Charlotte County. The Coastal Conservation Association, and many partners, brought 40 tons of recycled oysters to drop into Turtle Bay.
The oysters come from a restaurant in Lake County. Instead of being trashed, the shells are quarantined for six months to guarantee any bacteria may be gone, then they are brought down to Placida and loaded on a barge.
The idea is by dropping in recycled oyster shells, spat oysters - also known as larvae - can attach to the surface and grow. This will in turn create oyster reefs. Experts estimate more than 85% of the oyster reefs worldwide have been wiped out.
"This is our fourth deployment, and we have just over 100 tons of oyster in the water," Michael Brimer said, president of the Charlotte County chapter of CCA. "We saw evidence after the first year deployment that it was paying off, and it's paying off by oyster growth. That's what we're looking for."
COO of CCA, Adam Miller, said the reason they chose Turtle Bay is because of the water depth, salinity and existing oyster population. The goal is to closely monitor this project and use its success to bring new oyster reefs to other areas of Florida.
A single adult oyster is able to filter up to 50 gallons of water each day which could improve the quality of Turtle Bay, and Charlotte Harbor, as a whole.
"This one, Oyster Bar is not going to change Charlotte Harbor, but it's going to be a piece of the puzzle, right? Hopefully, it shows others that they should be doing the same thing and putting more oyster bars around," Brimer said. "Because somebody is doing something right. We can all talk about it. We can all maybe even talk negative about. They don't think that it's going to do anything right, but it doesn't hurt to try. That's a fact."