Okaloosa County celebrates new living shoreline on Choctawhatchee Bay

Speaker 1, a county staff member, opened the event by urging attendees to look past the stones: "What you see behind me may look like a pile of rocks, but what it really is is a legacy for coastal resiliency," he said.

Speaker 2, an Extension Services representative, said they were "thrilled" to join the celebration of the new living shoreline addition to Choctawhatchee Bay in Okaloosa County. "We have a few throughout Okaloosa County, but this is quite large and ... will contribute to our coastal resilience that we have here in the county and that the county continues to promote," Speaker 2 said. Speaker 2 described Sea Grant as the coastal science arm of Extension and noted the Florida Sea Grant program operates statewide and partners on projects like this one.

According to Speaker 1, the project required years of work and coordination among county teams. "It took a team of folks from our grants department that did a phenomenal job, making sure we had grant funding for this. It took our coastal resource team on the tourism development department. It took our engineers, in public works and a whole host of other folks to support this effort and, obviously, with the leadership of our county commissioners," he said.

Speaker 3 framed the project in environmental terms, describing local wildlife and the shoreline's ecological role. "This project preserves the shoreline against natural eroding causes of nature and long grasses to add to the environmental ecosystem that allow for and encourage growth to creatures in the water. We are being good stewards," Speaker 3 said.

Speakers credited grant funding and a multi-department effort for the installation; no formal motions, votes or regulatory actions were recorded in the transcript. The project was described repeatedly as a long-term resiliency and habitat measure for Okaloosa County's Choctawhatchee Bay.