Fort Myers City advisory board hears low‑cost ‘rag‑pot’ oyster restoration method

At a Fort Myers City advisory board meeting, representatives of Oyster River Ecology described a low‑cost approach to rebuilding degraded oyster reefs in local rivers and estuaries.

Damon Moore, who runs the small nonprofit Oyster River Ecology, told the board that historical records and maps show the Manatee River once supported expansive oyster reefs but that nearly all bottom reef habitat has been lost over the last century. "We found historic maps from the 1800s that called it the Oyster River," Moore said. He cited state severance records showing the Bradenton Shell and Dredging Company removed about 651,253 cubic yards of shell between 1931 and 1962, a loss he said removed the cultch oysters need to reestablish.

Moore said those losses are dramatic in scale: historical reef area in the Manatee River was about 132 acres, while current mapping and the group’s recent work show roughly 5.65 acres of bottom reef today. "Literally, 96% of the oyster reefs have been destroyed out there," he said.

Faced with the cost of replacing cultch with rock — an engineer estimated roughly $635,600 per acre for a 6‑inch layer, Moore said — the group developed an alternative they call an "oyster rag pot." Abby, Moore’s associate, described the pot as four low‑cost components — a cotton rag, a wooden spacer, a metal top ring and a thin cement coating — that provide vertical surface area for oysters to colonize. "Materials cost is just a little above a dollar," Abby said, adding that when operations, insurance and overhead are included installed costs work out to about $6–$8 per square foot.

Abby and Moore described mass‑production and volunteer deployment methods. They said they have installed about 47,000 rag pots covering roughly one acre so far, with tests showing an average of about 100 oysters per pot after a year and many pots coalescing into contiguous reef in 10–12 months. "We installed 4,500 rag pots with about 15 volunteers in about two hours," Abby said, noting the technique scales via simple production and volunteer events.

On permitting, Moore said the work has been permitted through the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) as a form of aquaculture aimed at providing ecosystem services rather than harvestable shellfish; that pathway can trigger a programmatic general permit with the Army Corps of Engineers if state setback and other conditions are met, while novel gear sometimes still requires an individual federal review.

Board members asked about boater and neighbor reactions, food‑safety pressures and funding. The presenters said they socialize projects with neighbors, avoid placing work in navigation channels, and aim to secure grants and local foundation support; they also said the method intentionally places work outside areas likely to be approved for harvest. Moore and Abby offered to workshop the method with other local groups and support permitting and site selection.

The presentation concluded with the presenters encouraging the board to consider where 10‑acre permitting blocks might be available within Fort Myers City and offering free, open‑source technical support.

The board thanked the presenters and moved on to additional agenda items.