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Public invited to collect shells from Mexico Beach renourishment project

BAY COUNTY, Fla. (WMBB) – Hurricane Michael destroyed miles of shoreline in Mexico Beach. City officials say there was less than 12 feet of beach left.

The Bay County Tourist Development Council began a three-month beach renourishment project, extending the beach by about 145 feet. They completed the project on May 1.

However, the dredging project brought up more than just sand.

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“They have these giant machines that the company brought in, and it just pumped up from the ocean, and it goes right into the conveyor belts, and they have a lot of like fingers that go through it with the machines, and it pulls out anything on a large scale. So that pulls a lot of the shells up,” Mexico Beach Public Works Director Mark Steele said.

The city trucked the extra shells over to the Mexico Beach boat ramp and opened it up to the public to search for shells on Friday and Saturday, June 6-7.

Shell collectors brought out their buckets and rakes in search of a unique shell. They could collect up to five gallons of shells a day.

There are thousands of different types of shells that collectors could find.

“This is a Strombus Alatus. It’s a sad one, but it is the Strombus Alatus. There’s also the Left-Handed Lightning Whelk Sinistrofulgur Sinistrum. And then there’s these pretty little olives that everybody’s picking up because they’re shiny. And this is Americoliva, subspecies Sarasototensis, which is the Gulf species,” Shell Researcher David Berschauer said.

Many were searching for one of the rarest types of shells, only found in the deep ocean.

“We’re looking for the Junonia. I think there’s a lot of people that are looking for those. It’s like the most elusive shell that people look for, and this is an example of one that’s broken, but you can get the idea. It looks kind of like giraffe spots,” Shell Collector Bryan Cummings said.

The leftover shells will be used in erosion projects throughout Mexico Beach.

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“A lot of it will be used for public works to help people around the city with the parks. Some will be crushed down for parking lots. And they kind of supplement some of our stormwater systems with the drainage. So we do plan on using quite a bit for city use,” Steele said.

Due to the success of the event, Mexico Beach plans to open up additional days for shell collection throughout the next few weeks.

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