VIDEO: Group working to restore oyster populations along Wakulla County coast

• Wakulla Environmental Institute is working to sustain and grow the oyster population in Wakulla County.
• Domes are going into the water to help oysters grow.
• Watch the video above to see how crucial oysters are to the health of the coastal ecosystem.

BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:

Oysters help filter our water and are essential to the health of marine life here along the Wakulla County Coast. I’m Kenzie Krueger in Panacea. Now, there's a plan in place to keep the oysters in this water healthy for years to come.

Clean water benefits us all. For Wakulla Environmental Institute that starts with oysters.

“We want to be able to restore Oyster Bay to the level of what it used to be historically and we think we’ll be able to do that.” Wakulla Environmental Institute or WEI has found a way to restore oyster reefs here in Oyster Bay.

They're doing that by putting domes in the water that the oysters can grow on. “If you’re going out swimming in the ocean you don’t want to worry about what harmful effects will have on your body and the food you eat when you’re talking about marine life.” Albert Wynn with WEI says giving the oysters a place to grow will filter the water helping the ecosystem.

“The one question I’ve asked everyone is do you want to eat your food out of clean water or dirty water, you want clean water. The oysters help do that they filter out the water.”

After spending time on the water themselves, it motivated them to do something to help improve the water quality. They say the restoration project will do just that and produce more oysters.

Bob Ballard with WEI says they believe this will help oyster farmers stay in business for years to come. “It’ll cleanup the water to such an extent that our oyster farmers never have to shut down.”

In addition he says it also benefits other marine life.

“People either don’t know or forgot that oysters when they spawn they feed 300 different species of fish so fish are attracted to them either by eating them or eating the spawn that they produce.”

He says the project will improve fishing as well

“Once these domes finally get in the water, It’ll be one of the best fishing holes in Florida.” They say oysters support over 3,000 marine animals and are a foundation of what a healthy fishery looks like.

Albert says they think this project could help other areas all around. “We’re confident we can take what we do here as a blueprint to what we can do around the the US.”

USDA has helped them find the project and came out to look at their progress on Tuesday. I’ll keep you updated on their findings.