Santa Rosa County held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Tuesday to commemorate the completion of the Floridatown Park Living Shoreline Project on Escambia Bay. The project is a major environmental resilience initiative aimed at protecting the shoreline while also supporting the improvement of water quality and local wildlife habitats.
This living shoreline at Floridatown Park, which provides public boating access and recreational amenities, is the first of its kind in the county. The location was chosen primarily because of its historical importance and its long history of significant erosion from storm surge and extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Ivan 2004 and Hurricane Sally in 2020.
Santa Rosa County District 1 Commissioner Bobby Burkett had the honor of leading the public unveiling of the project, which has been in the works for seven years.
“Yes, it’s been a long time coming. It’s a project we’ve had visions of,” said Burkett. “We got the grant in 2019 to start the engineering and design of it, just 1,000 feet.”
The initial grant was $125,000. In 2022, the county received an $800,000 grant from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to complete the living shoreline, which was built with limestone rock or rip-rap.
“We’re doing two things. It helps stop the erosion. Nothing’s going to completely stop it, but it helps the erosion,” Burkett said. “Plus, it provides wildlife habitat for the fish, birds and other wildlife to come in here.”
“This is a very special place for multitudes of reasons,” said Dan Helms, Chief of the Santa Rosa Band of the Lower Muscogee, beginning to lay the groundwork for the historical and cultural significance of the Floridatown Park site, which sits on a midden of oyster shells.
“This area has been very meaningful to the Native American people,” Helms stated. “This is the culmination of many trails that were used for various reasons. A very important one was trading.”
According to Helms, in the 1800s, a ferry that ran from Floridatown across the bay to Ferry Pass in Pensacola helped to establish the historic economic importance of the site.
“The main thing of the ferry was that the Native Americans, the Creek Indians, would bring their trade goods here to Floridatown Park. Then a representative from Panton, Leslie Trading Company would take those across the bay to the trading house over in Pensacola,” said the chief. “At the height of the deerskin trade, Panton-Leslie took in, in one year, over 250,000 deer hides.”
During the ceremony, Chief Helms blessed the site with a prayer in the traditional Muscogee language.
As for the need to protect and restore the shoreline, he referenced a 200-year-old map of the John Innerarity Spanish Land Grant that reflected a more robust coastline.
“When I did the overlay onto a new current map, I found that the shoreline actually extended out anywhere from 425 feet to 650 feet beyond where it is now,” he stated. “So, you can see there’s been a lot of erosion over the years.”
Lesley Gandy, who has lived near the park since 2024, was shocked to hear how much has eroded over the years but says she’s happy with the way the living shoreline project has turned out.
“I think it’ll definitely keep everything where it is and I think it’ll also help with the fish being in that area, so I just think it’s a good thing,” Gandy said. “I don’t know how the environmental stuff works, but it looks like it’s gonna be a good solution in fixing any environmental issues.”
While this is the first living shoreline in Santa Rosa, Commissioner Burkett reiterated that he hopes it will not be the county’s last.
