Plus, Everglades restoration jumps five years ahead of schedule
Florida’s historic Apalachicola Bay oyster harvesting is back open for business after a five-year ban, groundbreaking for a “huge” pump station is expected to accelerate Everglades restoration, and Tampa Bay Wave unveils a new accelerator program to help “bluetech” startups. It’s all in this week’s Environmental & Engineering Digest.
Apalachicola Bay
Apalachicola Bay Reopens: Apalachicola Bay has a storied past as Florida’s premier oyster fishery, once supplying 90% of the state’s oysters before collapsing in 2013 leading to a complete shutdown in 2020. Now, five years later, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) has approved the reopening of the bay, queuing up a two-month season to kick off come January 1. Subsequent seasons will run from October to February. While this is welcome news for the oystermen and women, the reopening will be limited for now to just 500 of the original 10,000 acres of bay. Some are also underwhelmed by the limited number of permits to be allowed. FWC officials say the number of permits for weekday commercial and weekend recreational harvesting can change in future seasons based on the bay’s ongoing recovery from the effects of reef removal used in road building, hurricanes, disease and poor water quality from diminished upstream flows from Georgia. FWC’s goal is restoring 2,000 acres of reefs by 2035, pending funding from the legislature.
Brown discharge water from Lake Okeechobee flows past the Sanibel Island Lighthouse into the Gulf of Mexico, June 2018. Courtesy, Captains for Clean Water
A New Pump for the Glades: The water flow in the Everglades has long been impacted by human development, but in a visit to Palm Beach County earlier this month, Governor DeSantis celebrated the groundbreaking of a huge new pump station needed to help set things straight in the great river of grass. Thanks to a July agreement with the federal government, Florida is now taking the reins on key Everglades restoration projects like this one, previously handled by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. New inflow and outflow pumps are part of the Everglades Agricultural Area (EAA) Reservoir project, which will store redirected water from Lake Okeechobee. The EAA Reservoir will hold 78 billion gallons of lake water that have previously flooded areas like the Miccosukee Reservation, spiked salinity levels in Florida Bay, and required harmful discharges into the Caloosahatchee and St. Lucie estuaries that cause unsightly and unhealthy blue-green algae blooms coast to coast. Current water supply systems in the area move 1.1 billion gallons per day, but with the new pumps in place, the flow will triple to 3 billion gallons daily and return the natural flow of water to the Everglades. The shift in ownership means the project should be finished in 2029, a whopping five years ahead of original projections.
Members of the BlueTech|X Accelerator Team. Courtesy Tampa Bay Wave
Waving In Bluetech: Tampa Bay Wave recently announced its newest accelerator program to support ocean-focused startups, known as The BlueTech|X Accelerator. Seven entrepreneur support organizations have banded together under a $13.9 million initiative called the Continuum, funded by the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), including Tampa Wave and the University of South Florida, to connect startups with a coordinated network of researchers, government agencies, and industry thought leaders. The goal is to advance dual-use technologies which improve ocean health and coastal resilience, drive industry job creation and bring new capital into the realm of sustainable business development. The 2025 cohort included the following seven startups:
- Tampa-based eSkuad, a field data management platform designed for operations
- Tampa-based Seagate Space Corp., a maritime and defense company focused on offshore rocket launching
- Tampa-based SkyTL, an artificial intelligence-powered disaster prediction and prevention platform
- San Francisco and Tampa-based Sensfix, an AI-powered service platform to improve maintenance processes for facilities
- Milpitas, California-based AI Technology & Systems, which develops AI software and services for devices
- Ithaca, New York-based EMPEQ, a software company using AI to streamline building equipment surveys and asset management
- Houston-based Tempest Droneworx, which develops real-time intelligence software that fuses drone and sensor data
Visibility and a slew of resources for the new bluetech wave means great things for coastal communities, not just in Florida, but across the globe.
LMA Newsletter of 11-17-25
