In a clearer Sarasota Bay, clearer signs of life

Excerpt from article published in the Sarasota Herald Tribune on Sunday, November 30, 2008:

By Doug Sword
Published: Sunday, November 30, 2008 at 1:00 a.m. Last Modified: Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 9:53 p.m.

SARASOTA - Stand chest-deep in the waters of Sarasota Bay and look down, and you should be able to see your knees.

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Improved water quality in Sarasota Bay map Graphics
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Seagrass Growth (PDF - 1032kb)

That is an improvement.

Twenty years ago, standing in that same spot, greenish water laden with algae would have obscured anything below the waist.

In the wide, central section of the bay, a foot and a half of water clarity was gained during the 1990s. After another decade of closing leaky sewer plants, building water retention projects and restoring coastal wetlands, the gain is probably even larger.

And a soon-to-be-completed study will likely conclude that judged by seagrass and clarity, the bay is as clean as it was when Harry Truman was president.

This means more than a bay that is prettier and more marketable to visitors.

With clearer water, sunlight reaches more of the bay's bottoms, where seagrass beds have grown by more than 1,200 acres. These beds are the spawning grounds for the bay's fish, and their growth has created 5,500 acres of continuous, interconnected seagrass, which surpasses what aerial photos show existed in 1950.

Scallops driven out by pollution are repopulating the bay. Declining nitrogen emissions into the bay have cut algae by a third over the last decade, despite the region's increase in population.
Those improvements were purchased at a high price, easily surpassing $500 million.

Not much of that spending was done directly for the bay's benefit. Wastewater and septic projects were undertaken for health reasons and stormwater projects cut back on flooding.

But the bay is a big beneficiary.

The sweep of the program is hard to grasp. More than 250 water quality testing sites dot the bay, and water monitors have been collecting data at some of them since the 1970s.

Large sewer projects in Manatee County, and even larger ones in Sarasota County, have cut pollution. Manatee County has been particularly aggressive in restoring coastal wetlands.

The 300-acre celery fields stormwater retention project at Fruitville Road and Interstate 75 has slowed down and cleaned the flow of water into an overburdened Phillippi Creek.

Huge stormwater projects, such as one at the Sarasota-Bradenton airport, have reduced agricultural and residential runoff, particularly into Whitaker Bayou.

Utility rates, local taxes and property assessments, along with federal and state dollars, have paid for an Manatee counties that have reversed what many think of as Florida's big mistake when it comes to water.
When Florida was being developed, intricate drainage projects aimed to get water into the bay as quickly as possible. Now, gradually and expensively, that rapid drainage is being reversed, slowing the flow of water or keeping it from the bay altogether.

Over the next decade, most of these big public works projects will be largely complete. If the bay is to truly be restored to the point where waders can see their toes, it will take individual action like switching to Florida Friendly yards or using nitrogen-free sprays to fertilize your lawn.

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