South Florida Association of Environmental Professionals
Community Oyster Project
SFAEP Community Oyster Project
One Oyster Filters 50 Gallons of Water per Day!
South Florida has existing water quality issues, which has been exacerbated in recent years by sewage infrastructure deterioration, increased bacterial/algal loads, and greater human populations leading to more polluted waters and storm water runoff, further nutrifying the waterways.
One solution SFAEP is working towards to combat these water quality issues includes a local oyster shell bagging, restoration, and rescue project. Research and Broward based citizen science programming are also to be included in the efforts that will improve water quality by increasing the native oyster population.
Oysters have superpowers! Oysters naturally enhance water quality in several ways including:
1. Carbon sequestration - A percentage of oyster shells are made up of Carbon, as an oyster grows it removes carbon from our environment
2. Oyster habitat - Oysters provide shelter for juvenile fish and many invertebrate species acting as a nursery and enhancing local biodiversity
3. Water filtration - Possibly most important, oyster filter the water for food feeding off algae and dinoflagellates improving water quality and reducing nitrogen that leads to algal blooms and red tides in our coastal waterways.
SFAEP volunteers have also been structuring the development of a project to create oyster mats and bags to give out to community members. Community members will be able to attach the oyster cultch bags to their seawalls, dock pilings, and in their local marinas.
This project has been made possible by a multitude of project collaborators and inspired by the Florida Oceanographic Society (FOS) Oyster Restoration Project. SFAEP members have been developing this project and program for many years and is thankful for Port Everglades allowing us to use port space for shell drying and for SFAEP & Urban Farming Institute’s volunteer support during oyster shell collection and bagging events.
Reach out to Erik Neugaard at neugaard@yahoo.com, or Stacy Brown at events@ufi.us.org for more info. or to join as a volunteer.
