The boat ramp at the “Buddy” Ward Park west of Apalachicola will be closed to the public Thursday and Friday as FSU researchers use the ramp as a staging area for work they are doing to rebuild oyster harvesting areas in the Apalachicola Bay.
The ramp will be used to load oyster shell as well as two different sizes of rock, which will be deposited on Dry bar.
The rock and shell will be used as substrate to give new oysters a site to grow.
The ramp should be open to the public again on Saturday.
The work is part of the Apalachicola Bay System initiative, a years long effort designed to learn what has led to the decline of the Apalachicola Bay ecosystem and to develop a restoration plan for the bay.
The Apalachicola Bay once produced about 10 percent of the nation's eastern oyster supply, but the fishery collapsed in 2013.
A moratorium on commercial oyster harvesting in the bay is in effect and could last for 5 years.
In 2019, Florida State University received 8 million dollars in BP Oil spill money to investigate the root causes of the fishery disaster and come up with a plan to fix it.
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