TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Federal Effort Reaps Tampa Bay Reward

ADVERTISEMENT

By MIKE SALINERO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: November 23, 2007

TAMPA - Twenty years ago, many of the nation's great freshwater-fed bays were on the brink of collapse. Victimized by decades of pollution, once-bountiful oyster and crab fisheries were dying, sea grasses were receding and multimillion-dollar seafood-based economies were at risk.
State and local governments cried out for help in cleaning up these vital waters, and Congress responded by creating the National Estuary Program in 1987. Since then the program, administered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, has forged partnerships with hundreds of state and local governments, including the members of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

By almost every measure, the program has been successful. From Casco Bay Estuary, Maine, where the lobster industry is rebounding, to Sarasota Bay, which has seen a resurgence of 25 fish species, national estuary partners are improving water quality. In Tampa Bay, nitrogen pollution has been capped, spurring a 31 percent increase in seagrass acreage.

The federal government's investment in the program is relatively small: $18.1 million this year for 28 estuary programs. But for every dollar in federal money, the estuary programs have been able to raise $16.50 from other sources.

"We looked around and we've not found any other government program with a leveraging ratio that high," said Darrell Brown, who directs the National Estuary Program for EPA. "What it really shows is the strength of the partnerships for these local programs."

Estuary program members use the money for a variety of pollution prevention projects from habitat restoration to stormwater treatment to public education. During the past seven years, estuary programs have protected or enhanced more than 1 million acres of wildlife habitat.

A Significant Estuary

In the 1980s Tampa Bay was suffering the ill effects of poorly treated sewage, industrial discharges and dredge-and-fill operations. Sea grasses in the Bay, a barometer of water quality, had declined from 40,400 acres in 1950 to 21,653 in 1982.

Local leaders and environmentalists who wanted to reverse the damage came up with a management plan with 41 priority actions items. The Agency on Bay Management was created to implement the plan, but it was a volunteer group with no funding.

"This was a wish list of things that needed to be addressed, but they didn't have any money," said Dick Eckenrod, the first executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

Money was available at the federal level through the National Estuary Program. Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Platt, who chaired the Agency on Bay Management, led the push for Tampa Bay to be included in the national program.

Platt enlisted the help of U.S. Reps. Sam Gibbons, D-Tampa, and Bill Young, R-Indian Rocks Beach. In 1989, the group testified before a congressional committee along with Peter Hubble, then executive director of the Southwest Florida Water Management District.

Platt told the committee that environmentalists, business leaders and local politicians overwhelmingly supported a scientifically based plan to clean up the Bay. She gave examples of how people in counties surrounding the Bay had voted to raise their own taxes to protect environmentally sensitive lands.

"Anyone with any sense realized the health of the Bay is important and they were willing to do whatever needs to be done to make that happen," Platt said.

Congress designated Tampa Bay an "estuary of national significance" in 1990, paving the way for establishment of the Tampa Bay National Estuary Program a year later. President George H.W. Bush signed the act creating the program at Disney World, Platt said.

One of the first actions taken by the new estuary program board was to hire Eckenrod, who had done environmental work for the water management district and Manatee County. Eckenrod, who retires Jan. 31, set up a Nitrogen Consortium that included representatives from industries around the Bay.

Nitrogen is the most troublesome pollutant in the bay. It feeds algal blooms that block sunlight needed by sea grasses. The blooms also eat up oxygen in the water that fish and shellfish need to breathe.

"His goal was to reduce nitrogen," said Gray Gordon, a former vice president with Cargill Fertilizer. "He had actual percentage goals. It was a science thing. It wasn't a political thing."

Gordon said Eckenrod used the force of his personality to convince industrial leaders to reduce their nitrogen pollution.

"He'd say, 'This is what I'd like you guys to do,'" Gordon said. "Then when you'd hang up ... you wanted to get back and do it."

Eckenrod and the estuary board set a goal of capping nitrogen loading into the bay. The goal was ambitious, considering the rapid population growth in the area. So far, they have been able to meet the goal as evidenced by the regrowth of sea grasses. At 28,299 acres, the seagrass coverage area has increased by 31 percent since the low point in 1982.

"We're meeting the water quality targets because we're meeting our nitrogen loading cap," Eckenrod said.

The estuary program also has been successful in getting grants to supplement the money it gets from EPA and from its local government partners, Hillsborough, Pinellas and Manatee counties, and the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg and Clearwater.

This year, EPA gave the program $418,000, and local governments matched that amount. The estuary program was able to raise another $1.43 million in grants.

Last year, the agency did even better, securing grants worth $11 million, including nearly $5 million for stormwater treatment systems in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Gulfport and Hillsborough County.

"If all we had to operate on was the $400,000 we get from EPA, we wouldn't be able to get anything done," said Ron Hosler, the estuary program's administrator.

Estuaries' Conditions Fair

Despite their successes, both the national and Tampa Bay estuary programs have more work to do. A June Coastal Condition Report graded the overall conditions of the estuaries as fair. The same report indicated 23 percent of the fish and shellfish monitored showed signs of contamination.

Tampa Bay's program faces continuing challenges controlling nitrogen. The Bay area's population is projected to increase by 3 million people by 2050. That means more cars spouting nitrogen compounds, more lawns using fertilizers and herbicides, and reduced green areas to slow the flow of polluted stormwater and absorb it.

Water quality in the Bay is likely to improve in coming years because the state is setting pollution load limits for streams, rivers and bays here. The limits are the highest amount of pollutants a water body can absorb and remain healthy.

Once set, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection will require local governments to reduce pollution discharges to the limit amounts.

The state is considering setting pollution limits for several areas of Tampa Bay. Until now, the DEP had considered the Bay in compliance with water quality standards based on the estuary program's bay management plan.

If DEP sets the pollution limits, local governments will be allotted a certain amount of nitrogen they can allow in each Bay segment, such as Hillsborough Bay. If they exceed the caps, they could be fined or forced to build costly stormwater treatment systems.

In Tampa's case, the state could cap the amount of treated wastewater discharged from the Howard F. Curren sewer plant on Hooker's Point. That would limit the city's ability to grow.

Tampa could resolve its dilemma by reusing more of the highly treated discharge, said Deborah Getzoff, director of DEP's Southwest District and chairman of the estuary program board.

"That would go a long way toward removing nitrogen and addressing some of the concerns about a nitrogen limit for that bay segment," Getzoff said.

The city is trying to get several large industries to use water from the sewer plant instead of potable water, said Steve Daignault, Tampa administrator for public works and utility services.

Like other federal agencies, the National Estuary Program faces the possibility of budget cuts every year. But Brown, the NEP national director, says the program remains popular with Congress.

"The way I see it, the NEPs won't go out of business," he said. "There's always something to work on."

Reporter Mike Salinero can be reached at (813) 259-8303 or msalinero@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT