Florida State University has assembled a 23-member community advisory board to help guide researchers as they embark on a 10-year initiative to restore the Apalachicola Bay and revive the region’s oyster industry

Florida State University has assembled a 23-member community advisory board to help guide researchers as they embark on a 10-year initiative to restore the Apalachicola Bay and revive the region’s oyster industry.

The project, called the the Apalachicola Bay System Initiative is funded by a grant from Triumph Gulf Coast, a nonprofit corporation organized to administer funds recovered by the state for economic damages that resulted from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

The FSU Marine Lab in St. Teresa will use the 8 million dollars over 10 years to try to figure out what's gone wrong with the oysters in the Apalachicola Bay and hopefully restore the industry.

The project will include a scientific investigation into what factors are actually damaging the oysters followed by the creation of a scientific plan to restore the bay.

The 8 million dollars in Triumph Gulf Coast money would pay for about 75 percent of the costs, while FSU will contribute $1.5 million toward the project.

The 23 members of the community advisory board include local government officials as well as representatives from the seafood industry, recreational fishing industry and environmental groups.

They include representatives from the Apalachicola Riverkeeper and the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve as well as The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

There are also local fishing guides on the board along with seafood workers and dealers and local political leaders among many others.

Over the past few decades, natural and man-made disturbances have affected oyster populations in the Apalachicola Bay, including changes in water flow, overfishing, disease and hurricanes.

The Bay once provided nearly 90 percent of Florid'as oysters, but the oyster industry in Apalachicola collapsed in 2012 leading to a Commercial Fisheries Disaster Declaration from the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2013. 

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