SGEF charges students one dollar each semester, allowing for projects like beach restoration to take place.
Photo by Matthew McGovern | The Crow’s Nest
By Matthew McGovern
The University of South Florida St. Petersburg’s waterfront is finally getting a system of defense.
On Nov. 8, over a dozen members of the Student Green Energy Fund (SGEF) student organization gathered to establish a living shoreline along the University of South Florida St. Petersburg campus waterfront.
The idea to mend a portion of the campus’ waterfront has been in the works for over a year, according to Julianna Parisi, a senior majoring in environmental policy and the chair of SGEF. In 2024, SGEF vice chair Oliver Laczko secured a grant from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program to restore the harbor’s beach.
“The goal of the project is to restore a living shoreline to the beach, which is a combination of native vegetation, oyster reefs, and oyster bags that will harbor a lot of biodiversity while also maintaining the sedimentary structure of the beach so that we can continue to reduce erosion,” Laczko told The Crow’s Nest last year.
Last year’s back-to-back hurricanes — which changed the landscape of the beach significantly — among other challenges, delayed the project. Now, SGEF is ready to step in and preserve the ever-changing landscape of the shoreline.
“We can’t really plan when we want to do things,” said Julianna Parisi, a senior majoring in environmental policy and the chair of SGEF. “And so, we pushed it back to this year. We found a plan and then the beach, it completely changed, and so we got to a point where the original plans just didn’t work anymore.”
Bayboro Harbor has a well-documented history of neglect, a topic some SGEF members, like Laczko, have a robust understanding of.
The beach on campus is now adorned with native plants, including sea grapes, salt meadow cordgrass, and blue stem palmettos.
Though visually appealing, this ongoing effort by SGEF and its members will provide long-term benefits to USF St. Petersburg students and the local ecosystem.
“I love it, I love this team,” Laczko said. “I’m really proud of the work we’re doing and the work of the student volunteers.”
