Vertical Oyster Gardens - Mayor's Challenge

Do you want to help Save Our Bay? In a recent water quality report on Old Tampa Bay, which lines the Oldsmar and Safety Harbor coasts, water was found to be the least healthy in the entire bay. There are many ways to help clean our waters. Our first project to tackle this important issue will be Vertical Oyster Gardens or VOGS. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?

While oysters are good to eat, one oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day. Imagine the filtering power of hundreds or thousands of oysters!

Oldsmar Mayor Eric Seidel is partnering with Safety Harbor Mayor Joe Ayoub to encourage residents to hang VOGs on their docks. These VOGs will help recruit oysters to our bay and get us one step closer to cleaner, healthier waters. Even if you do not have a dock, you can still volunteer to help make and monitor the gardens.

Program Launch - R.E. Olds Park

Saturday, December 11, 2021 - 9am

Tampa Bay Watch staff will be at R.E. Olds Park to teach us about VOGs. After a short educational session, volunteers will help make VOGs, and will demonstrate how to hang them. 

This will be an ongoing project, so keep an eye out for future events!

Special Thank You to our partners