This Earth Day, Port Everglades is having the community volunteer to help improve the quality of South Florida’s waterways. The way they’re doing that is with oyster shells! NBC6’s Xochitl Hernandez reports
Port Everglades gathered community volunteers to help improve the quality of South Florida’s waterways with the help of oyster shells.
The oyster shells were previously shucked and used, donated from restaurants outside Broward County. Now they’re being prepped to be thrown back into the waterways to clean the water.
Volunteers drilled holes in the oyster shells and strung them through wire, creating ropes to hang in waterways in Fort Lauderdale private residences and the New River.
"When oysters are babies, they swim, and when they find a place they like to live and they put down a base, they’ll settle on a shell," said Erik Neugaard of Port Everglades. "We’re gonna take these oyster shells when the babies are bigger and we’re gonna create oyster beds in areas where they used to be."
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Land development was cited as one of the main reasons behind destroying habitats where oyster shells once thrived, harming Florida's water quality.
"The quality is degraded and oysters are one of the fundamental resources in our waterways to naturally filter these waters and provide habitat for fish," said Mike Lambrechts, the president of Coastal Conservation Association Florida.
According to these conservationists, one shell can clean 50 gallons of water.
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"We can’t do it without everybody working do it together," said Suzee Bailey, the founder of Residents for Resilience. "We really need collaboration."
Organizers encourage Floridians to call up conservation groups like the Coastal Conservation Association or Residents for Resilience to see how they can get involved.
"Say, 'I would like to get involved. I would like to put some oysters on my dock," Bailey said.
Conservation groups are working to get a permit to dump these oyster ropes into Fort Lauderdale waterways, but in the meantime, it’s all hands needed on deck to drill these shells.
