Nonprofit Manasota-88 expresses opposition to potential County Commission effort to restore tidal flow between bay and Gulf
The ecological health of Little Sarasota Bay, adjacent to part of Siesta Key, has continued to show improvement, the executive director of the nonprofit Sarasota Bay Estuary Program (SBEP) has reported.
Dave Tomasko’s July 16 account on the SBEP website appeared exactly a week after Sarasota County’s Public Works Department director updated the County Commission on the status of the first phase of a feasibility study related to the water body. Initiated in response to commissioners’ interest in potentially re-establishing a tidal connection between Little Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, the study is expected to be completed later this year.
Tomasko’s report preceded by two days a newsletter from the nonprofit Manasota-88, which made clear that organization’s opposition to the County Commission’s efforts.
The Manasota-88 statement said, “Establishing a Little Sarasota Bay (LSB) Gulf to Bay tidal connection (an unlikely outcome) will not solve the pollution problems of Little Sarasota Bay, it merely moves the pollution to the Gulf of Mexico where ‘unintended consequences’ are likely to occur. The solution to pollution is NOT dilution, the solution to pollution is elimination and reduction at its source. The closing of Midnight Pass did not cause the pollution of Little Sarasota Bay, stormwater runoff is the primary cause of the pollution.”
In his update, Tomasko of SBEP provided what he characterized as a “multi-parameter Ecosystem Health Report Card” for Little Sarasota Bay as of 2023.
“As you’ll recall,” he wrote, “lower scores (warmer colors) represent more degraded conditions, while higher scores (cooler colors) represent healthier conditions. This graph[below] indicates that LSB [Little Sarasota Bay] was a fairly healthy system between about 2006 to 2012, with average scores above 2.5. However,” he continued, “there was an overall downward trend during those same years. Values continued to degrade between 2013 to about 2018. The years of 2018 and 2019 were the worst we’ve recorded here,” he pointed out.
“Although values had increased slightly between 2018 and 2019, the biggest increase was between 2019 and 2020, providing some initial evidence of a positive trend,” Tomasko noted. “Two of the last three years (2021 and 2023) had scores above 2.5, and none of the past four years had values at or below 1.5.
“These data suggested that there was indeed a pattern that we used to define our ‘reference period’ of 2006 to 2012, along with what we call the ‘degraded period’ of 2013 to 2019,” he wrote. “This was then followed by what appears to be a period of improving ecological health during the years 2020 to 2023.”
Then Tomasko included another table, which, he pointed out, “summarizes the annual average concentrations of Total Nitrogen (TN), Chlorophyll-a (an indicator of phytoplankton [or microscopic marine algae]), and the average macroalgae scores across LSB for those three periods. For both TN and Chlorophyll-a, higher values are worse, while for macroalgae, higher scores are good,” he explained.
Nitrogen has been identified as the primary “food” for the algae that causes red tide, Karena brevis.
“These data show that, compared to the reference period, TN and Chlorophyll-a values were approximately 17 and 25% higher, respectively, during the degraded period,” Tomasko noted, referring to the graphic. “The lower macroalgae scores indicated that there was more macroalgae in LSB during the degraded period than the reference period.
“In contrast,” he added, “when you look at the last four years (2020 to 2023) the values of TN and Chlorophyll-a show declines that result in values similar to those of the reference period. And the macroalgae scores have increased over the last four years to be more like what we had in the reference period.”
Yet, he cautioned, “This does NOT mean that LSB is now pristine, or that no more work needs to be done in that system. However, recent actions to reduce nitrogen loads to our bay have helped to bring about a very impressive response of improving water quality in LSB and other locations.”
Then Tomasko pointed out, “Seagrass coverage is an important and holistic biological indicator of ecosystem health, but it is only quantified every two years. Also, trends in seagrass coverage reflect a lag period effect — it takes a while for coverage to decline if water quality degrades, and it also takes a while for recovery to occur, if water quality improves. With that in mind, here is the pattern of seagrass acreage in LSB over the past 30+ years,” he wrote, referring to another graphic.
“The blue box represents the bay-wide reference period of 2006 to 2012,” he explained. “Seagrass coverage peaked in 2014, but then declined substantially between 2014 and 2018, a decrease of more than 200 acres. However, while we have not yet seen a recovery to those higher values during the reference period, the steep losses that occurred between 2014 and 2018 have moderated, and we are hoping (fingers crossed) that we will have increased seagrass coverage in LSB when the 2024 maps come out.
“So why the attention on LSB?” he continued. “Because the perception that some have … that LSB is in bad shape is more widespread than for most other bay segments. These results do not mean that LSB is pristine, or that it has no issues that need to be addressed. But, the available data suggest that recent investments of hundreds of millions of dollars on recently completed and/or ongoing wastewater upgrades and stormwater retrofits seem to be working.”
Reducing the nutrient loads in the bays
In public comments over the past couple of years, Tomasko often has cited Sarasota County Commission action, beginning in the summer of 2019, to upgrade the county’s three major wastewater treatment facilities to Advanced Wastewater Treatment (AWT) status. That initiative is expected to result in significant decreases in the red tide-producing nutrients that end up in Sarasota Bay and its component water bodies.
In late August 2022, then-Public Utilities Department Director Mike Mylett told the commissioners that the plans to upgrade the Bee Ridge, Central County and Venice Gardens water reclamation facilities (WRFs) to Advanced Wastewater Treatment Status, along with increasing the capacity of each by 50%, was estimated to cost as much as $750 million.
In response to a News Leader request this week for an update on the overall expense, the Public Utilities Department staff provided the following information in a July 24 email:
“Sarasota County’s Conversion to Advanced Wastewater Treatment consists of three projects: the Bee Ridge Water Reclamation Facility (WRF), Venice Gardens WRF and Central County WRF. The estimated cost for the program is approximately $500 million.
“To address significant and historical inflation pressures,” the statement continued, “alternative construction methods, such as the Construction Manager at Risk (CMAR), were employed. CMAR is a project delivery method where a construction manager guarantees a project will not exceed a maximum price. The manager acts as a consultant during the design phase and takes on the general contractor role during construction. This approach was particularly beneficial for the Bee Ridge project, allowing for rapid procurement and construction of most process treatment equipment and large-scale construction activities, thereby avoiding much of the inflation impacting the construction industry.
In addition to using CMAR,” the statement noted, county staff “explored federal grant and loan opportunities. The county secured a $105 million Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (WIFIA) loan for the Bee Ridge project. Established under the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act of 2014, the WIFIA program, administered by the EPA, aims to accelerate investment in the nation’s water infrastructure by providing long-term, low-cost credit assistance for significant projects.”
Moreover, the statement said, “The Bee Ridge project is on schedule and within budget, with completion expected by the end of 2025. Construction at Venice Gardens is slated to begin next year, and work on Central County will commence once Venice Gardens is complete.”
The Hurricane Ian impacts
In his report, Tomasko also pointed out, “While it’s true that 2023 was a very dry year, it’s also true that 2022 included the impacts of Hurricane Ian — which affected LSB more so than any other part of Sarasota Bay …” He provided this link: Hurricane Ian’s Impact on Sarasota Bay.
“It’s also true that the perception of degraded water quality in parts of the bay like Palma Sola Bay and Little Sarasota Bay seems to be based on a view that all parts of the bay, at all times, are supposed to have aquamarine waters similar to the Gulf of Mexico,” he noted. “That’s not only not true, but it’s also an unattainable goal.”
He explained, “The lower part of our bay, from Ringling Causeway to Venice Inlet, has a watershed that is about 10 times larger than the open waters into which runoff drains. In the upper part of the bay, from Ringling north to Manatee Avenue, the ratio of watershed to open water is closer to 1 to 2, depending on location. Based on that alone, the water quality in the southern portions of Sarasota Bay cannot be expected to be the same as in the northern portions of the bay.”
Moreover, Tomasko pointed out, “[T]he shoreline around Little Sarasota Bay has very extensive mangroves, which drop leaves and branches into the water to produce ‘colored dissolved matter’ or ‘tannins.’ Tannic-rich water can look like ‘bad’ water to the general public, but it assuredly is not. Tannins help to keep harmful algal blooms (HABs) under control by reducing water clarity and by releasing compounds that are antagonistic towards HABs. When you see tannin-rich water coming off of a mangrove forest, like the photo below, keep in mind that this is not ‘pollution.’ ”
Manatees, but no ‘Lyngbya’ type algae
Then Tomasko indicated that, on July 15, he and other SBEP representatives “went to three transects in LSB as part of our macroalgae monitoring program for the bay. At those three transects, we laid out a total of 18 quadrats, and we only found macroalgae at a few of them … “There was no ‘Lyngbya’ type algae found at any of the sites we visited, and we found much more seagrass than macroalgae, which is a good sign.”
He also noted that the group spotted several manatees. “The photo below shows two of them, perhaps a mother and calf, right next to the boat at our second transect, in the seagrass meadows just east of the channel in front of the restaurant Ophelia’s on the Bay [on the southern portion of Siesta Key].”
“The larger one has a nasty, but healed series of prop scars,” Tomasko pointed out, “while the younger one was free of scars. Both were nice and fat, which is a good sign for manatees.”
He then explained, “Unlike locations on Florida’s east coast, we don’t have starving manatees washing up on our beaches and shorelines on a regular basis.”
Concluding the report, Tomasko wrote, “While we still have our problems in LSB and elsewhere, we are making the right investments to get our water quality under control, which is helping us to reverse the declines in seagrass acreage that we experienced recently. This in turn is helping to provide a healthier environment, not just for humans, but for the State of Florida’s official marine mammal.”
Manasota-88 decries any county effort to ‘cherry pick’ the science
In its July 18 newsletter, related to County Commission action regarding Little Sarasota Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Manasota-88 maintained, “Water quality studies of LSB must include the changes that have occurred in the LSB watershed since Midnight Pass was first documented. Since the closure of Midnight Pass in 1983, the population of Sarasota County has more than doubled from approximately 200,000 residents in 1980 to nearly 465,000 residents today. Mangrove forests, wetlands and pine flatwoods have been modified or eliminated and replaced with an urban landscape,” the newsletter said.
“If Sarasota County is going to ‘follow the science’ and decide what actions are needed to improve the water quality of Little Sarasota Bay, then the science cannot be ‘cherry picked,’ ” the newsletter pointed out. “An integral part of understanding the health of LSB must incorporate the functions and values of the existing beach and estuarine habitats.”
It continued, “There are many projects in the Little Sarasota Bay watershed worthy of funding that are ecologically beneficial, do not cause environmental destruction and are fiscally responsible, [but] dredging open Midnight Pass is not one of those projects.”
Among the beneficial initiatives, it listed the following:
- “Control Invasive Plants.
- “Protection and enhancement of the productive Little Sarasota Bay estuarine system.
- “Maintaining existing mangrove trees and increasing mangrove tree acreage in the Little Sarasota Bay Watershed.
- “Protection and enhancement of the nursery habitat” enjoyed by the fish community within Little Sarasota Bay.
- “Maintaining and increasing wading and shore bird feeding habitat acreage.
- “Protection and enhancement of spawning areas for estuarine-dependent fish species.
The newsletter also emphasized, “At a minimum, the study of Little Sarasota Bay should include “Verification that Stormwater Discharges are Being Monitored for Compliance.”
The newsletter pointed out, Sarasota County does not sample stormwater outfall discharges.”
Yet, it added, “There are hundreds of public and private stormwater outfalls discharging into Little Sarasota Bay. These outfalls discharge directly to Little Sarasota Bay with no compliance monitoring of the discharge (either storm event or periodic). A total count of public outfalls and a tally of private outfalls should be identified and monitored.”
Moreover, the newsletter noted, “[Stormwater] runoff changes salinity patterns and increases toxic chemical transportation and sedimentation into the bay.
Further, it said, “Freshwater and intertidal wetlands have been severely altered or eliminated in the watershed of Little Sarasota Bay. Wetlands provide valuable habitat, filter pollutants, and regulate freshwater flow into the Bay.
“Measurable goals and outcomes for water quality improvements for Little Sarasota Bay and the Little Sarasota Bay watersheds include but are not limited to [the following],” the statement continued:
- “Restriction of motorized watercraft” in seagrass areas and the repair of areas of disturbed bay bottom.
- “Elimination or reduction of the adverse cumulative impacts”, as well as secondary impacts from boating activities, such as prop scars, hydrocarbon pollution, boat paint, and wildlife disturbance.
- Increased marine patrol and law enforcement in problem areas.
- Elimination or reduction of boat-related contaminants that add “noxious amounts of undissolved oils and greases to the waters.
- “Elimination or reduction of the negative environmental impacts associated with the seasonal increase in boats.”
Further, the newsletter pointed out, “Septic tanks can discharge residual nitrogen, phosphorus, and other pollutants into adjacent waterways. Most soils located in the Little Sarasota Bay watershed [are] rated severe by the Natural Resource Conservation Service and are not appropriate for septic tanks.”
Manasota-88 calls for eliminating septic tanks in the Little Sarasota Bay watershed.