By Hibu Websites
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July 2, 2020
Fun Fact!
Thousands of tiny sea creatures — filtering water and attracting fish — grow on artificial reefs underneath docks in Marco Island.
Beginning decades ago, thousands of acres in Florida were transformed with dredge-and-fill operations that created canals to maximize waterfront development. These canals provide homeowners with easy water access to our diverse waterways, but the docks, bulkheads and seawalls don’t provide the same habitat values and water quality benefits as our salt marshes and mangroves.
Typically canals have poor water quality because of the surrounding land uses and a lack of tidal flushing, so they’re devoid of the wildlife expected to thrive in marshes and mangroves. But because the canals are lined with expensive waterfront homes, restoring natural habitats would be nearly impossible.
Such was the challenge facing David Wolff, who had worked on an artificial reef as a USF marine biology undergrad in the 1990s. At the time, the focus was cleaning water for the aquaculture indu
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