2021 was the worst year on record for Florida manatees, with over 1,000 deaths – likely more than 10% of the state’s population. What you may not know is that in the first three months of this year, we are not that far behind what happened last year. During January to March 25th of 2021,…
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As we move forward with restoring our water quality and ecosystem health here in Sarasota Bay, it’s important for you to know that we are recommending management actions that are supported by the scientific method, rather than wishful thinking or good intentions alone. By the time we present information to our Policy Board, that topic…
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The Seagrass Survey is back! SBEP and Sarasota County are looking for boaters, waders, and kayakers to help survey the seagrass beds within Sarasota Bay. The event this year will be hybrid: April 16th – 29th: Flexible survey window where volunteers can collect seagrass data on their own. Survey when and where that works best…
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Beck et al. 2022 graphical abstract In April 2021, over 215 million gallons of phosphate mining water and marine dredge water, rich in algae-driving nitrogen, were released into lower Tampa Bay from the Piney Point facility. Led by the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, a group of scientists and managers immediately began to monitor the ecological…
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Earlier today, Sarasota County hosted the groundbreaking ceremony for improvements to the Bee Ridge Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP). That WWTP is the largest in our watershed, and the upgrades will increase its capacity from 12 to 18 milion gallons per day (mgd), and upgrade it to Advanced Wastewater Treatment (AWT) standards for nutrient removal technology.…
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Thanks to Greg Blanchard (Manatee County) and Kevin O’Donnell and colleagues (Florida Department of Environmental Protection – Tallahassee) we now have all the data needed to update our Report Card for all parts of Sarasota Bay. The report card uses two water quality parameters, Total Nitrogen and Chlorophyll-a (an indicator of the amount of algae suspended in…
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As you know, we’ve been hitting on the importance of getting on top of our water quality issues in Sarasota Bay and stressing the need for coordinated and sustained efforts to improve water quality via reducing our individual and cumulative nutrient impacts. One of the big changes we’ve seen lately is a reduction in nitrogen…
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We’ve discussed working on a study with University of Florida researchers regarding whether or not the area around Venice Inlet might be a “hot spot” for red tide. We know that red tides off of Sanibel and Captiva are enhanced (not created) by nitrogen loads coming down the Caloosahatchee River, and local researchers believe that…
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Over the past few weeks to months, I have had a number of people ask me about the value of somewhat “alternative” approaches to water quality management, as well as the related issue of the value of transplanting seagrasses. I believe that these questions have come from people who genuinely want to speed up the…
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One of the things we want to pursue with our upcoming $4.5 million in funding over the next five years is habitat restoration activities on spoil islands. This is a good idea for habitat purposes alone, but is there a potential water quality benefit as well? We all know that wetlands can reduce sediment and…
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I wanted to pass on some information to you, that is almost entirely good news, with some caveats in there. First, the most timely bit of information is something I learned yesterday. Dr. Mark Rains, the State’s Chief Science Officer, let me know that there is a small leak in the reservoir at Piney Point,…
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One of the things we’ve tried to do here is to let you know what we know, but also what we don’t know. We know that humans don’t cause red tide, but we also know that we can make them worse. We don’t know how much worse, however, but we are fairly certain that even…
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November 30 marks the end of Manatee Awareness Month and a grim milestone for Florida’s manatees. As of this month, we have lost over a thousand manatees, more than ten percent of our statewide population, and nearly twice the number of manatees that typically die each year. The epicenter of this extraordinarily bad year for…
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Sarasota Bay is shallow, and much of it is covered in seagrass. Seagrasses are aquatic flowering plants that grow in meadows teeming with wildlife. These habitats are very important to our economy and fishing industry, and they provide protection from storms. When boaters run too shallow over seagrass beds, they can rip out grasses and…
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It looks like we’ve got medium levels of red tide along the barrier islands, part of a bloom that is mostly offshore, but which stretches from north of Tarpon Springs down Longboat Pass. Winds out of the west will push this closer to our beaches, while winds out of the east will help to push…
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You may have noticed that conditions around the bay appear to be a bit nicer lately. It’s not just your imagination; there has been a definite improvement in water quality over the past few weeks. The photo above (from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWCC)) includes four panels which display a composite of…
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On October 5, 2021, the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program hosted a virtual workshop to accelerate solutions for water quality recovery in Sarasota Bay. The workshop featured presentations from local government representatives and community innovators on projects that aim to reduce pollution entering the bay through infrastructure and nature-based solutions. Click to download the meeting agenda:…
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We may finally be seeing some good news on the red tide front! Hopefully not just a short-term phenomenon, but we’ll take it for now, even if it is. A week ago (8/19/2021) satellite imagery and actual field data from a variety of sources (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administraion (NOAA), the Florida Fish and Wildlife…
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Over the weekend, Tropical Storm Fred’s path veered farther to our west than was originally predicted. This resulted in lower winds than we would have expected if the storm was closer to us. However, local rainfall fell roughly into the categories expected, of about 1 ½ to 3 ½ inches of rain across our watershed.…
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There could be some good news on the horizon for at least our barrier islands, with regards to our current red tide. The latest data from Mote and FFWCC researchers shows red tide at low, moderate and high levels both in the bay, and also along our barrier islands. In our region, this red tide…
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