Tampa Bay Watch re-purposes discarded oyster shells, rebuilds coastline
TAMPA, Fla. - In an effort to restore critical oyster reef habitats in the Tampa Bay area, Tampa Bay Watch has launched its "Shells for Shorelines" program, recycling oyster shells and turning them into blossoming underwater environments.
"It’s wonderful to be working with area restaurants in the oyster recycling program. We’re able to take those oyster shells and instead of putting them in a landfill, now we put them back out in Tampa Bay where they become new habitat for other oysters as well as fish and wildlife," explained Peter Clark, the founder and president of Tampa Bay Watch in Tierra Verde.
Tampa Bay Water wants to expand to more restaurants.
The program, which takes discarded oyster shells from area restaurants and re-purposes them, launched Monday to help filter water and grow oyster reefs into important barriers during hurricanes and storms, helping expand what Clark started about a year and a half ago with two restaurants.
"Recently, we received a grant from Duke Energy and NOAA, Restore America’s Estuaries program upwards of about $1 million to help us really energize the oyster recycling program and bring it to a lot more restaurants all around the bay," said Clark.
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It starts off with collecting the shells from the restaurants, then leaving them at Pinellas County sites for four to six months to allow any bacteria to die off. When it’s time, volunteers can attach them to rope and create hanging gardens.
"You can see the original string of oysters goes right down through the middle, and all of these are live oysters that have started to grow on the outside of it," said Clark while showing off some of the hanging gardens on Tampa Bay Watch’s dock. "The new oyster shell recycling program provides those shell that we thread on the line that we can give out to waterfront homeowners, so they can hang from their docks and grow these oysters naturally as they hang in the water."
Shells are collected from restaurants and then re-purposed.
The program also includes a plan to place shells along shorelines at MacDill Air Force Base, Abercrombie Park in St. Petersburg, Fantasy Island, the mouth of the Alafia River and at Boca Ciega Bay wildlife refuge areas, Clark said. There are man-made oyster reefs at Fort De Soto Park, and Clark said oyster reefs help to protect against coastal erosion during hurricanes and storms.
"They help to stabilize the sediments in place. But also, if they're wide enough, as the waves come ashore, they help to trip those waves before they can erode the beach or the mangrove areas," said Clark.
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It’s getting more difficult to find oyster shell material for habitat restoration projects, as Tampa Bay Watch would traditionally get shell material from area mines. But those mines have been depleted, forcing the organization to travel farther south to Port Charlotte.
"So not only are we doing a great big benefit by returning the recycled shell out in the bay, but it also saves us money and gets more people involved with our habitat restoration projects," said Clark.
The recycled oysters help filter water and grow oyster reefs into important barriers during hurricanes and storms.
After collecting at least 100,000 pounds of oyster shells over the last year and a half, the next step is getting people to eat more oysters at restaurants.
"Right now, Tampa Bay Watch is working with seven existing restaurants. And our goal in the next two years is to ramp that up to 20 or more restaurants, not only in Pinellas, but also Hillsborough County and maybe Manatee County as well," Clark said.
The participating restaurants so far include OysterCatchers, Crabby Bill’s in St. Pete Beach, Crabby Bill’s in Indian Rocks Beach, The Helm Coastal Fare and Provisions, CoCo’s Crush Bar and Grill North in Clearwater Beach, The Oyster Bar and The Island Grille and Raw Bar.