4/4/2023 0 Comments Apalachicola oyster spatGulf-related groups have lobbied for them on Capitol Hill. Alabama aligned with Florida in numerous lawsuits dating back to 1990. This, they hope, will add real-time heft to an ongoing lawsuit Florida filed against Georgia in 2013 for hogging the water and ruining the Apalachicola Bay ecosystem.Īpalachicolans have allies in their water struggle with Georgia. “When they run out of oysters to eat, they turn cannibalistic.” He’s working with members of the FWC to film and photograph predators in the act. The resulting increased salinity creates breeding grounds for conchs and oyster drills, predators that devour oysters.Īn abandoned warehouse on the Apalachicola River. That population explosion has reduced Apalachicola Bay’s share of water to a trickle, disturbing the fresh-to-saltwater ratio. Census, more than 6.1 million people live in the Atlanta metropolitan area, up from 3 million in 1990. Previously, this water flowed freely to the Apalachicola River and into Apalachicola Bay.Īccording to the 2010 U.S. In 1989, the United States Army Corps of Engineers recommended that Atlanta, one of the country’s fastest growing metropolitan areas, accommodate its expansion with water from the Buford Dam, located on the Chattahoochee River. “Back then, the bay was full of oysters.”Ĭonsider the decreasing oyster population a repercussion of events many miles away-one of which started more than a quarter century ago. “In the sixth grade, I was making $100 a day after school,” Coulter recalls. They’d eat their fill and then sell the rest. It’s a far cry from the prosperity of his childhood.įorty years ago, Coulter and his brother Frank spent afternoons and weekends on a 14-foot flounder boat, maneuvering wooden tongs more than twice their height like scissors, raking the bay’s sandy floor for briny, succulent riches. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission (FWC) limits commercial oystermen to four bags a day, four days a week, “but the reality is, no one can ever fill more than two,” Coulter says. “On a really good week, the men I contract make about $360 harvesting oysters,” says Coulter. “Our oysters only leave the county for special events.”Įarl Coulter, 49, a third-generation oyster dealer and owner of East Bay Oyster Company in Eastpoint, tells a similar story. “Now we’re down to two oystermen who average three to five bags a day,” T.J. Once a week, Buddy Ward & Sons trucked oysters to Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, with more frequent trips throughout the state. (photo by Jeremiah Stanley)Įvery day, those oystermen brought in about 250 bushels. He has been an oysterman his entire life. Carl Sanders, 52, sits on the shore of the Apalachicola Bay after a day of catching oysters.
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