On October 16, Martin County crews waded into waist-deep water in the Indian River Lagoon off Sailfish Point. They carried buckets of Southern Hard Clams so small that county project manager Michael Yustin told WQCS they look "like quinoa." The crews scattered 3.2 million of them across the bottom. The clams were donated by the Great Florida Shellfish Company, and as Yustin put it, they "dig down into the substrate and start to do their thing."
TCPalm reported that the crews also planted thousands of seagrass sprouts across the same half-acre. The clams carry the main idea. The county is using the water off Sailfish Point to test whether the lagoon can be cleaned up enough to regrow its own seagrass. If the test works, the next phase won't stay inside a half-acre.
Why the County Started With Clams
Yustin explained to WQCS that the plan starts with a chain of cause and effect. Seagrass in the lagoon declined mostly because of nutrient pollution, and each link in that chain is a place to step in:
- Excess nutrients get into the estuary.
- Those nutrients feed algae.
- The algae block sunlight from reaching the seagrass blades.
- Without light, the seagrass dies back.
The clams target the second step. "They suck up nutrients, and nutrients cause algae," Yustin told WQCS. "So we think that these clams can help to make conditions better for the seagrass." Rather than replant the grass itself, the county is testing whether a better environment lets it come back on its own.
That's why a planting of clams off Sailfish Point matters more than its size suggests. The question being tested is whether the water itself can change enough to support new growth.
The Math That Rules Out Replanting
Yustin explained the reasoning in terms of scale:
"We didn't want to just go out and plant seagrass. First of all, I don't think you could plant your way out of this. There's something like 60,000, 70,000 acres of seagrass habitat in the Indian River Lagoon. You're not going to be able to plant that much seagrass."
That quote comes from WQCS's October 28 report. Put the plot off Sailfish Point next to those figures. Half an acre against 60,000 or more acres of habitat is less than one-thousandth of one percent. Nobody expects that half-acre to restore the lagoon. It's a test of whether the approach holds up. Yustin called the project "pretty cutting edge" and "a pretty unique project."
Two Clams, Two Different Jobs
This isn't Martin County's first clam effort near the St. Lucie Inlet. In November 2025, TCPalm described an earlier plan involving Martin County, the Great Florida Shellfish Company and Florida Oceanographic Society. The goal was to spawn millions of lucinid clams for a 600-acre seagrass restoration area north of the St. Lucie Inlet in Stuart, something the report said had never been done before. The two efforts use different clams that work on seagrass in different ways:
| Lucinid clam effort | October 2026 deployment | |
|---|---|---|
| Clam | Lucinid clam | Southern Hard Clam |
| What the clam does for seagrass | Digests toxic hydrogen sulfide | Filters nutrients that feed algae |
| Area | 600-acre restoration area north of the St. Lucie Inlet | Half-acre off Sailfish Point |
| Partners named | Martin County, Great Florida Shellfish Company, Florida Oceanographic Society | Martin County, Great Florida Shellfish Company, with Tetra Tech monitoring |
The earlier work also had local hands in it. TCPalm photographed Great Florida Shellfish Company owner Tom McCrudden strip-spawning a lucinid clam at his facility on February 7, 2025. A year before that, on February 28, 2024, volunteers from Indian River Lagoon Aquatic Preserves, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, Tetra Tech, St. Lucie County's Environmental Resources Department, the Florida Park Service and Martin County dug for lucinid clams in the lagoon. TCPalm's photos also show seagrass already planted in the 600-acre area by August 14, 2025.
The same hatchery and many of the same agencies keep showing up in this work. Over several years, the inlet area has become a testing ground for using shellfish to support seagrass, and the half-acre off Sailfish Point is the latest experiment.
What the Southern Lagoon Already Shows
The clams went into a part of the lagoon that has been doing better than most. The Indian River Lagoon National Estuary Program's 2025 annual report says 2025 conditions supported seagrass growth in both the northern and southern lagoon, while seagrass cover in the central lagoon stayed low. It says southern seagrasses "continued to recover." It also reports that biodiversity expanded there, with manatee grass and turtle grass returning and spreading.
The same report adds a caution. Transect lengths have increased from 2023 through 2025, but cover along those transects "remains relatively low," and the 2025 data is marked preliminary. The southern lagoon is recovering from a low starting point. The plot off Sailfish Point tests whether clams can speed that recovery by clearing the water.
What Comes Next on the Water
Tetra Tech is working with Martin County to monitor the site, tracking water quality and clam health over time to see how well the project works.
The next step Yustin described would take the idea well beyond a single plot. Clam larvae swim before they settle, so they can spread farther and cost much less to release than juvenile clams. "We're going to release like 50 million of these larvae into the estuary on an incoming tide," Yustin told WQCS, "and then they can just go wherever they want."
That plan would release more than fifteen times as many clams as went in on October 16, and the tide would decide where they settle. On the Sailfish Point side of the inlet, the test plot is where the idea gets proven first. The larvae release would be how it reaches the rest of the estuary.
Yustin also tied clams to the larger cleanup effort. "It took us 100 years to mess up our estuaries. It's going to take time to fix them," he told WQCS. "So at the end of the day, we really do need to continue to work through cleaning up water before it enters our estuaries."
Where Neighbors Can Put in Hours This November
Florida Oceanographic Society on Hutchinson Island runs the volunteer side of much of this work. Its citizen scientists monitor seagrass every month at several sites in the Indian River Lagoon and St. Lucie Estuary from April through October, so the 2026 season just wrapped up. Its FOSTER program, short for Florida Oceanographic Seagrass Training, Education and Restoration, trains volunteers in seagrass monitoring and restoration. FOSTER volunteers care for seagrass nursery tanks and wet lab systems. The volunteer page says they typically give about two hours a week, must be at least 16 years old and commit to at least six months after orientation and training.
The best way to start is an interest session. Florida Oceanographic Society's events calendar lists these dates over the next few weeks:
- Wednesday, November 11, 9:00 to 10:00 a.m.: Adopt-A-Highway cleanup on the society's stretch of Ocean Boulevard
- Thursday, November 12, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.: On-site Volunteer Interest Session
- Wednesday, November 18, noon to 1:00 p.m.: Virtual Volunteer Interest Session
- Monday, November 23, 9:30 to 10:30 a.m.: Coastal Cleanup
The society notes that its volunteer roles aren't always recruiting, so the interest sessions and its volunteer application are the way to find out which roles are open.
The lagoon side of Sailfish Point is part of what gives a home there its value, and our team follows changes on that water as closely as we follow sales. If you'd like to talk about how that shoreline fits into your plans for a Sailfish Point home, Patrick Stracuzzi and the team are glad to sit down with you. Schedule a Consultation.
