March 2026

We've checked in on the world of oysters more than once in the H2O Zone - from the return of harvesting to Apalachicola Bay to the (admittedly niche) story of soft jazz as a vehicle for oyster advocacy. This month's edition of what you might call Oyster Watch takes a more practical turn. A recycling scheme at the Hyatt Centric Key West Resort and Spa is giving oyster shells a second life after the oysters themselves have been enjoyed at the resort's four restaurants.

The scheme, originally piloted over a year ago, works by curing shells for six months to eliminate bacteria before putting them to use in landscaping, soil stabilization, road and driveway compaction, and as a potential substitute for concrete and cement. Research is also underway into using the shells in canal restoration across the Florida Keys - work that could deliver meaningful benefits to the wider marine ecosystem. As oyster stories go, this one's a keeper.

Back in April 2024, we highlighted the plight of the smalltooth sawfish - a critically endangered species that was washing up in the Florida Keys after, for reasons still unknown, spinning in circles until they died. The cause of the behavior remains a mystery, but a new study published in Fishery Bulletin has given conservation efforts a reason for cautious optimism.

The study centers on the Indian River Lagoon in the South Fork of the Saint Lucie River, which appears to be functioning once again as a nursery for juvenile sawfish. The lagoon has played this role historically, providing a protected habitat for the first two to three years of the species' life. Researchers welcome the news, while emphasizing that water temperature and salinity in the lagoon will need careful, ongoing protection if the sawfish's fragile recovery is to hold.

One of the challenges of environmental storytelling is cutting through with abstract data. Rising sea temperatures are genuinely alarming, but a figure on a page doesn't always land. This story is different. Nineteen adult bottlenose dolphins washed up along the Florida Panhandle during March, with no visible signs of injury and no immediate explanation.

The event has been officially classified as an Unusual Mortality Event, and testing is underway to establish the cause. Early theories point to water quality problems - specifically, a prolonged red tide or a wastewater spill in the area. Whatever the findings, nineteen dolphins in a single month is the kind of number that doesn't allow for ambiguity.

Valencia Lakes is a residential community of 1,647 homes in Wimauma, Florida. When the team at Hoover first got involved, the community was running an aging triple-sled submersible system with nine pumps - expensive to maintain, difficult to control, and a constant source of disruption. Every pump replacement alone could run to more than $10,000.

The plan was straightforward: remove the old system entirely and replace it with a new 3,000 gallons-per-minute pump station built to Hoover's proven quad design, along with Hoover Flowguard to manage the community's three interconnected water sources. Since the installation in late 2022, Valencia Lakes has had uninterrupted water supply. Flowguard data records usage of over 38 million gallons a month - handled without issue. That's the kind of outcome that speaks for itself.

Real-time monitoring is at the heart of how Hoover's intelligent pump systems operate - the principle being that continuous data leads to smarter, more efficient water management. The same principle is now being applied at city level, and this story from Neptune Beach and Atlantic Beach shows why it matters.

Both cities are working to comply with a State of Florida requirement that will prohibit the "nonbeneficial" surface water discharge of treated wastewater by 2032. Their approach involves deploying technology that continuously monitors water conditions at key upstream locations, tracking factors such as salinity, triggering automated alerts, and identifying the safest points at which treated wastewater can be discharged. The ultimate goal is to protect inland waterways from saltwater intrusion - a quiet threat that can cause lasting damage to wildlife and the environment.

The H2O Zone regularly features stories about the next generation stepping up to the environmental challenges that climate change is creating. In Florida, those challenges include increasingly frequent and intense extreme weather events. A group of University of Miami College of Engineering seniors decided that the right response was to do something concrete about it.

Their project centered on a storm water master plan for the village of Palmetto Bay. Working from input gathered directly from local residents about the areas most vulnerable to flooding, the students designed a network of exfiltration trenches - underground systems built to capture storm water and release it gradually into the groundwater or via overflow into canals, treating it along the way. The design is engineered to handle all 5-year storm events without roadway flooding - exactly the kind of practical, targeted solution that communities across Florida need more of.