PERDIDO BAY — Oysters will thrive again in Perdido and Pensacola bays thanks to a $24 million award from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Roughly $10 million of those dollars will help restore 1,482 acres of oyster habitat in the Pensacola Bay System over the next ten years.

An additional $12.8 million has been earmarked for the Perdido Watershed Initiative which among its list of goals aims to complete restoration designs for the City of Orange Beach's Waterfront Park Living Shoreline, Gilchrist Island, Robinson Island, Walker Island, Lillian Swamp, and Bronson Field Living Shoreline.

The Nature Conservancy in Alabama will work with the City of Orange Beach and several other academic and volunteer groups to complete the work.

"It truly takes a village to enact change and to create better outcomes for the people and places that matter to us all. The depth and breadth of this project and the seamless collaboration of our partners is what made the difference," said Judy Haner, Marine Programs Director for TNC in Alabama, in a press release.

Finally, $300,000 will be used for the EscaRosa Oyster Shell Recycling Program to support the collection of recycled oyster shells from participating restaurants that are then used in coastal restoration in Pensacola and Perdido Bays.

NOAA's Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience Grant Program was made available under the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, providing unprecedented funding to restore habitat and strengthen resilience of coastal communities and ecosystems.

Matt Posner, executive director of the Pensacola & Perdido Bays Estuary Program, said the additional dollars give the organization an opportunity to implement change now.

"This is a transformational opportunity to advance coastal restoration in our region that would normally take decades to implement. We are incredibly thankful to NOAA for seeing the value of these collaborative initiatives, and to our partners for their commitment to seeing them through. These projects are key to implementing our Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan and the long-term recovery of our estuaries" he said in a statement.

The Nature Conservancy has long been deeply involved with oyster recovery along the Gulf Coast. Officials there cite several challenges to maintaining long-term, viable oyster populations to include changes in freshwater flows into the estuaries, sedimentation from increasingly frequent storms and heavy fishing.

Still, according to the conservancy, the Gulf Coast continues to produce more oysters than anywhere else in the United States, meaning there is increasing public and political support for restoring those oysters' homes.

One step currently being taken by legislators to further that protection is U.S. Senate Bill 50, introduced earlier this year by U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott, both of Florida, which would designate Perdido and Pensacola bays as an estuary of national significance, only the 29th in the nation and the first area so named in nearly 30 years.

That bill has been read in the senate twice and referred to the Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Learn more about the Pensacola & Perdido Bay Estuary Program at ppbep.org or follow them @ppbepflal on Facebook. Learn about simple steps you can take to protect local waters at estuary101.com.