The implementation phase of the Florida Oyster Cultch Placement Project has been completed. It will enhance and improve oyster populations affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Oyster secondary productivity along Florida’s panhandle suffered adverse impacts from the spill.
The $5 million project placed an estimated 62,000 cubic yards of cultch material over approximately 300 acres of previously constructed oyster bars in Pensacola, St. Andrew, and Apalachicola bays. The cultch will promote native oyster larvae settlement and oyster colonization in those areas.
The Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve (ANERR) will now monitor the project for ten years. ANERR will report on the oyster habitat enhancement in each of the bay systems.