Oyster Shells From Florida’s Restaurants Help the Restoration of Lake Worth Lagoon’s Ecosystem
For Tom Twyford, everything in Palm County is always full of surprises: the lagoon, the beach, and the restaurants dotted around it. Every once in a week, he visits the Breakers Resort and North Palm Beach’s Cod & Capers Seafood restaurant to collect oyster shells discarded from meals, and drops them at a curing station at John D. MacArthur Beach State Park. For the next three to six months, the blaze of the Sun sanitizes and parches the shells. When they are dry enough, volunteers string them with stainless steel cables, like barbecue necklaces made in ivory. The goal is not to build a pearly emporium of oyster jewellery. The goal, rather, is to restore the health of Lake Worth Lagoon, one oyster shell at a time, according to a report by FOX 29 affiliate WFLX.
The “grassroots initiative” is part of a recycling and restoration program led by the Palm Beach County Fishing Foundation. Ever since the initiative was rolled out, the lagoon area has spawned nearly 170 vertical oyster gardens, something which is already doing wonders in improving the water quality, mitigating pollution problems, and attracting fish and crabs.
"Oyster shells are far too valuable a resource to just send to the landfill," Twyford shared with WFLX. Each new oyster, he explained, can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, improving clarity and restoring habitat for marine life. But Twyford said these small projects are much more than just recycling. They are also a response to years of severe damage. Twyford lamented that the county’s coastline and waterways are in “dire need of help.” The “inshore estuary waters” are in a lot of trouble.
Elaborating on the extent of damage the river is experiencing, he said, “We have destroyed a lot of the natural habitat that once existed through development, shoreline bulkheading, and dredge and fill projects.” The lagoon is smeared with unbalanced salinity, as well as a large amount of algae-producing nutrients and ultrafine sediment particles, which he nicknamed “fairy dust.” The more this sediment coagulates in bulky layers, the resulting muck increases the lagoon’s murkiness and buries the seagrass beds and oyster reefs, which could otherwise be contributing to the filtration of water.
On Instagram, the West Palm Beach Fishing Club explained that recycled oyster shells provide an ideal substrate for the recruitment of new oysters. Oysters, the club wrote, are filter-feeders that help estuaries get rid of excess nutrients and fine sediment. “Improving water quality and clarity is our goal.” Twyford, who’s also the foundation’s executive director, explained that one oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day and remove some of the nasty material that’s in the water.
“Now, multiply that by tens of thousands of oysters, and all of a sudden, you have an incredibly efficient, cost-effective and natural way to improve water clarity and quality," he explained to Palm Beach Daily News (PBDN). Since June, the foundation has collected over 6,000 oyster shells, with 1,000 on average per week. “This is nothing new," he clarified to PBDN. "It’s been going on for a long time in other parts of the country, like the Northeast, the Carolina coasts, and the Florida Gulf Coast.”
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