State wildlife officials are devising plans to allow some commercial oyster harvesting next year in Northwest Florida’s Apalachicola Bay, despite no major improvements in the bay after a halt during the past four years.
With local officials saying an industry revival would create a more economically diverse community, members of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission on Wednesday expressed support for a staff plan that could allow oyster harvesting at the start of 2026 in a small part of the bay, which once produced most of Florida’s oysters.
Devin Resko, biological administrator with the commission’s Division of Marine Fisheries Management, said a series of workshops, including two in Franklin County, will be used to collect input before oyster rule changes are put forward in August for the bay and statewide. The potential changes are expected to be finalized by November.
“This is not an Apalachicola Bay issue. This is not a Florida issue, a Gulf issue, or a United States issue,” Resko told the commission during a meeting at Florida State University. “This is a global issue of dramatically declining oyster populations.”
Apalachicola Bay once supplied more than 90 percent of Florida’s oysters and 10 percent of the oysters sold nationally.
Cheryl Carr, secretary of the Seafood Work And Waterman's Association, said families who have spent their lives oystering are “struggling to put food on their tables and pay their bills” and that there are consequences of prolonged closures.
“When oyster beds remain closed for too long, they don’t just recover, they degrade,” Carr said. “Without harvesting, the reefs become choked with sediment and organic debris.”
Commission members discussed a need to improve communications with the Apalachicola region.
“We really need to get down there so you commissioners can all see first-hand it’s changed the face of that community,” commission Chairman Rodney Barreto told other members.
Resko said many estuaries in the state have lost 80 to 90 percent of their oyster reefs.
Franklin County Commission Chairman Ricky Jones said that with the bay closed to oystering, the economy of the region is more than 90 percent dependent on tourism.
“Franklin County wants the bay open,” Jones said. “It’s not just about the bay itself for the ecology, but for the fishery, for the economy of Franklin County.”
“We’re optimistic about getting this bay back to its once glory,” Franklin County Commissioner Ottice Amison said. “We feel like the FWC (Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission) has the opportunity to do something a lot of others along the Gulf Coast haven’t had the opportunity to do, which is to knock it out of the park. We want you to succeed.”
The state agency has also asked lawmakers to include $20 million for Apalachicola Bay restoration efforts in the 2025-2026 fiscal year budget, which will be negotiated during the legislative session that begins on Tuesday.
The bay and the industry have faced problems for more than a decade because of issues such as drought and overharvesting. Florida also has long contended that excessive water use by Georgia has caused damage. The bay is at the southern end of the Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint river system, which starts in northern Georgia.
In December 2020, the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approved suspending commercial oyster harvesting as part of a $20 million restoration effort. At the time, commission members said the suspension, set to end Jan. 1, 2026, could be shortened if improvements were seen in the oyster population and the condition of the bay.
Money for the restoration effort came from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation’s Gulf Environmental Benefits Fund. That fund receives money from a settlement with BP and Transocean over the 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster.
A commission staff presentation on Wednesday noted “no significant recovery has occurred since the 2013 collapse.”
But Resko pointed to signs that limited areas could reopen as part of a plan to restore 2,000 acres by 2032. The plan would require annual funding of $30 million to $55 million.
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