Water Wars
By BRUCE RITCHIE
Two steps up, one step back.
That’s the way habitat restoration feels in Apalachicola Bay after state wildlife officials reduced the oyster harvest limits during the upcoming season.
In scattered bays and estuaries around Florida, scientists and state officials are trying to restore oyster reefs that have been degraded or wiped out over decades by factors including poor water quality, disease and overfishing.
Much of the state’s focus has been on Apalachicola Bay, which historically provided 95 percent of Florida’s commercial harvest and 10 percent of the nation’s supply.
But the bay’s oyster population collapsed in 2012 following a prolonged drought. Florida sued Georgia in federal court in 2013 over its water use from the upstream Chattahoochee and Flint rivers but lost the case at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Florida closed the bay to harvesting in 2020 as more efforts were put into restoring oyster habitat.
State officials and Florida State University researchers have tested materials — including oyster shells, fossilized oysters and limerock of varying sizes — to rebuild reefs. Oyster larvae, called spat, need a hard surface upon which to attach and grow.
Restoring reefs is not just about putting oysters on food tables, although that is significant. Oyster reefs also provide important habitat for crabs and sport fish and help filter water quality in estuaries around the world.
The state received $20 million from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation in 2020 to accelerate restoration. Since then, the Florida Legislature has kicked in another $11.6 million, including $10 million in this year’s budget for restoration.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) reopened the bay for two months in January to media fanfare. But then in August, the agency slashed the next harvest limits by nearly half. A recent unexplained oyster die-off in part of the bay led the state to close the East Hole reef to harvesting this fall, reducing the annual limit.
FWC will allow 2,560 bags of oysters to be collected during the season from Oct. 1 to Feb. 28, compared to 4,940 allowed during two months earlier this year.
An agency spokesperson said the bay, despite the recent die-off, still is rebounding from an oyster population crash in 2013.
“There will be annual changes in oyster density on reefs, but we will continue to monitor bay-wide trends over the long term,” the agency said through the spokesperson.
Roger Mathis, an oyster harvester on Apalachicola Bay, said the new commercial limit equals about 19 bags per person over a five-month period — and that it “kind of broke my heart.”
“You can just about go out and catch them (19 bags) in one day if you want to,” Mathis said. “I was hoping we would get 50 to 60 bags.”
He said the oysters he harvested earlier this year were the “biggest, prettiest and most oysters I’ve seen in my life, and I’ve been doing this 59 years.”
Even so, FWC leaders still were calling oyster restoration a success at their August meeting in Panama City Beach.
“Permits have declined a little bit,” Commissioner Josh Kellam said. “But we’ve opened up something that’s been closed for six years and to now have it in a restorative fashion where people are now able to get back out on the water.”
Agency section leader Erica Burgess told the commission last year that $30 to $55 million is needed annually to restore 2,000 acres, or 20 percent of the bay’s historic oyster habitat, by 2032.
But Apalachicola Bay competes for attention with other environmental priorities, including Everglades restoration, springs protection and conservation land acquisition. There isn’t an Apalachicola Bay license plate or oyster celebration day at the state Capitol each year, like other causes.
Dr. Sandra Brooke of Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Lab said that theories about the East Hole die-off, such as high salinity or oyster disease, don’t seem to be holding up to examination.
“East Hole isn’t doing well this year, for unknown reasons, but the base material is in place for next spring recruitment,” she said. “So if those [young oyster] recruits survive, there may be a bigger allowable harvest. Bottom line — the Bay needs enough material in enough places to be able to support a fishery and ecosystem recovery through good and bad years.”
This is part of a semi-regular series of articles that will be featured in the Florida Specifier by Bruce Ritchie, a long-time Florida environmental reporter. Ritchie writes about competing water uses in Alabama, Florida and Georgia on Substack. You can subscribe for free at bruceritchie.substack.com.
