Our economy was originally centered around the sea from the time of the Calusa Indians to the Cuban-Spanish settlers who thrived off a diet of fish, oyster, clams, crabs, and basic agriculture and who’s economies were built on trading and exporting those very products. Then came proto-modern economic activity with wide spread farming and especially ranching, and the first arrivals of the shrimping, crabbing, and fishing fleets. Agriculture and ranching would peak in our region during the late 19th century. Replaced by the beginnings of what is todays urban development and the start of our tourism industry as wealthy northerners discovered that Florida is plentiful with a lack of taxes—also that it is warm year round and plentiful with untouched beaches. All the while, our seafood industry continued to prosper. It was in this period that my family first began laying roots in the area. Bringing with them, their experience in construction and helping develop the water fronts our tourism economy rely on.

It wouldn’t be till the end of the 20th century when environmental degradation, increasing fuel prices, increased regulations, and the rise of farm raised imports shrank the fleets to a fraction of what they once were. Leaving our famous Florida Pink Shrimp in less and less demand and often ignored as nothing more than simply an old marketing trope like “Got Milk?” and not the industry dominating product it once was.

The beginning of the decline of our shellfish and marine environment began with the construction of the canals that now link Lake Okeechobee to the coast and the subsequent draining of the Northern section of the Everglades for farming and urban development—in part fueled by the loss of Cuba as a US puppet and protectorate and de facto member of the US commonwealth after Fidel Castro’s uprising. Fueling the growth of sugar cane production. This led to the construction of levees around the lake, changing it from just being a deeper section of the everglades to a true lake and then the draining of stagnate water that is impounded in the lake throughout most of the year down the Caloosahatchee River. This flushing of the toilet that has become Lake O brings with it pollution, silt, and excessive nutrient loads that change the topography and make up of the marine plants and animals that live in our waters. The most devastating change for our shellfish population coming from the change in salinity in our sound, estuaries, and gulf from the ‘freshwater’. The loss of brackish water from Florida Bay has significant ramifications to the lobster, stone crab, shellfish populations that