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Hatchery Plan Rejected

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: March 12, 2009

TAMPA - Raising redfish to release into Tampa Bay may be a worthy undertaking, but raising the fry on taxpayer-owned environmental lands isn't a plan the property's overseers easily can support.

The county Environmental Lands Acquisition and Protection Program's general committee this week frowned on a request to relocate the state's Stock Enhancement Research Facility to a sliver of the Rock Pond property in south Hillsborough County.

"It's too much development on an ELAPP site," committee member Mariella Smith said. "We have a stellar record of using the property only for conservation and recreation. This project is far from that."

The committee stopped short of recommending that the Hillsborough County Commission deny the proposal, but members opted not to endorse it at a meeting Monday.

"We're moving on," said hatchery manager Chris Young, a research administrator with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. "We'll start looking at other sites."

For two years, the state agency has been searching for a new location for its fish hatchery, where millions of red drum are hatched and reared, then released near the mouths of the Alafia and Little Manatee rivers to enhance the breed's population in the wild.

Agency officials had hoped to use 45 acres of the Rock Pond site for the new hatchery.

The Rock Pond is a 2,350-acre former shell and rock excavation site purchased by the county and state in 2003. The state has targeted the property for what may be the last large coastal habitat restoration project on the shores of Tampa Bay.

Already, the land is one of the county's premier bird nesting sites for herons, egrets, anhingas and a few rare reddish egrets.

"I think the committee chose the position they did because the property was purchased for habitat restoration," said Forest Turbiville, manager of regional park services for the county.

"We've had proposals in the past for things on ELAPP land, like pipelines and various infrastructure improvements," he said. But no large structures have been proposed before, he said.

"There's no doubt that everyone involved in this discussion all wants what's best for the environment," Smith said. The state chooses to raise redfish to enhance the wild population, but ELAPP always has taken a different tack, she said.

"I'm not debating the merits of raising redfish and putting them in the Bay," Smith said. "But ELAPP restores shorelines and wetland systems. The end result is more redfish in Tampa Bay."

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566.

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