It’s been 15 years since Duval County oysters were legal to harvest, but the city's waterways commission and fishing industry are wondering if it's time to change that.
The question they need to resolve first is whether the economic impact is enough to warrant the money it'll cost to get the region's shellfish beds open for business.
It's estimated to cost about $230,000 in studies and manpower to prove to the Department of Agriculture that the water is clean enough between Fort George Island and Nassau Sound for harvesting, according to the Jacksonville Waterways Commission. It wasn't low water quality that led to the closure; monitoring stations were washed away and never replaced.
To start again, a new monitoring system would need to be established to show that the water is clean enough for Duval County's oysters, clams and mussels to be eaten raw. Already, a graduate student at Jacksonville University is researching how big the supply might be before monitoring starts up.
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