Three days after Tropical Storm Bertha passed by the area, Santa Rosa County 4-H youth and volunteers teamed up with UF/IFAS Sea Grant Agent Thomas Derbes to remove 158 pounds of marine debris from Navarre Beach during a four-mile cleanup effort that stretched to Opal Beach.
Supported in part by the Guy Harvey Foundation, the cleanup allowed participants to help restore the coastline while learning about the impacts storms have on Florida’s coastal environment.
Among the items collected were a discarded fishing pole and a tangled mass of monofilament fishing line with four attached fishing lures. Participants also safely returned several stranded starfish to the Gulf and relocated a Lightning Whelk egg case to a safer area of the beach after the storm had displaced it…