ORMOND-BY-THE-SEA, Fla. – Chuck Gleichmann can still picture the Halifax River as it looked from his dock nearly two decades ago, when the water was clear enough to spot individual stones on the riverbed. These days, he says, visibility has deteriorated so sharply that his hand disappears just inches beneath the surface.
“That’s how much the water quality has changed over a 20-year period,” Gleichmann said. “And it’s going to take us another 20 years to fix it.”
Rather than simply watch the decline continue, the retired Ormond Beach resident decided to take action.
In early 2024, Gleichmann read a Florida Sportsman magazine article about vertical oyster gardens, known as VOGs, and the role they had played in improving water quality in Tampa Bay.
“I was intrigued by it,” he said.
He contacted researchers at Whitney Laboratory in St. Augustine, along with the Coastal Conservation Association. Both told him the same approach could be effective on Florida’s East Coast, not just in waters along the Gulf.
From there, Gleichmann wrote a conservation-focused piece for a local waterfront magazine. Within 10 days of its publication, 38 people gathered in his living room, eager to help.
That momentum led Gleichmann to launch the community group Oysters for My Neighborhood, bringing more residents into the effort.
“Surprised would be an understatement,” Gleichmann said. “We have since then had so many people come on board, so many people show excitement about what we’re doing.”
A VOG is simple by design. Each one is made up of about 30 recycled oyster shells, collected from local restaurants, that are spread out in the sun for about six months to ensure everything inside the shell is dead before they’re returned to the water.
“Believe it or not, these were probably on someone’s dinner plate eight months ago,” Gleichmann said.
The shells are strung on biodegradable crab trap line, assembled in alternating, back-to-back fashion to create small pockets where crabs, shrimp and eventually oysters can take hold. Three shells-strung assemblies are packaged in a bag with full installation instructions and all the hardware needed to hang them from a residential dock.
“Simple to assemble, simple to install,” Gleichmann said. “You can build it, hang it off your dock, be done.”
No permits are required. That’s a key distinction from other oyster restoration efforts. The only rule is that the bottom shell cannot touch the river bottom.
Once in the water, a VOG typically takes 12 to 18 months to grow a mature oyster. When it does, some studies show, each oyster can filter as much as 50 gallons of water per day.
After that first growing season, the process accelerates. Oysters on the VOG begin producing their own spat – larval oysters – so the garden essentially replenishes itself year after year.
“Year two, year three, you actually get significantly more growth on the VOG because you get some local oysters on the VOG,” Gleichmann said.
Gleichmann’s program currently has approximately 1,500 VOGs in the water across Ormond Beach, Flagler Beach, Daytona Beach and Edgewater. By comparison, Tampa Baywatch has more than 20,000 in Tampa Bay, where Gleichmann says VOGs have been credited with a measurable improvement in water quality.
“We’ve got a long way to go before we get to 20,000,” Gleichmann acknowledged. “And we have an awful long river to take care of.”
Perhaps the most surprising part of the program has been the community response. Gleichmann hosted a build party last year that drew 100 volunteers in a single Saturday, producing 500 VOGs in one day.
Participants have included Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Brownies, cheerleaders from Mainland High School, and families spanning multiple generations.
“It has just grown in leaps and bounds since 2024,” Gleichmann said. “We couldn’t be more pleased with the kind of excitement we’ve generated.”
Gleichmann points to more than just the cloudy water as evidence of the river’s decline. The fishing he once enjoyed from his dock is largely gone. Redfish, trout and flounder, once common, are now rare sights.
“The days of catching anything other than a stingray or a catfish are pretty well gone,” he said.
His wife, Pat, echoes his concern.
“We’ve seen a big drop in the amount of fish that have been in the water because it’s not clean enough for them,” Pat said. “They go elsewhere. There’s not enough bait in the water.”
Chuck attributes the deterioration to a combination of factors, nitrogen runoff, aging septic tanks and overdevelopment.
“Everything here ends up in the river,” he said. “We can put in as many VOGs as you want, but we’ve gotta fix the other stuff too.”
Still, signs of life are encouraging. An adopted sheepshead visits Gleichmann’s dock nearly every evening around 5 p.m., tugging at the VOG lines to shake loose small crabs for dinner.
“Maybe things are changing a little bit,” Gleichmann said. “Gives me hope. I hope I’m here to see it all.”
For now, Gleichmann – affectionately known in his community as “the oyster guy” – is focused on growing the program, spreading the word and encouraging his neighbors to hang a few bags off their own docks.
“I’ve been called a hell of a lot worse than that,” he said of the nickname. “As long as I can get people to sign up to these things and do installs and call us up and tell us, hey, I want to be involved – they can call me pretty much whatever they want.”
