(Reprinted from Tide Magazine March/April 2000)
by Rick Farren
Few things are more satisfying to the human psyche than planting something and watching it grow. Sometimes the result is food, sometimes it's flowers, and sometimes it's a saltmarsh. A viable, fish-producing, water-cleansing saltmarsh is the bumper crop being reaped in the Tampa Bay ecosystem following years of hard work by literally thousands of community volunteers.
Coordinated by Tampa BayWatch, a non-profit environmental stewardship program, and in partnership with the CCA Florida Tampa Chapter, the volunteers have been planting and growing saltmarshes for nearly a decade; and now anglers, and the greater Tampa Bay estuary, are beginning to enjoy the fruits of that labor.
For the past 100 years or so, the 380-square-mile Tampa Bay and the surrounding 2,000-square-mile watershed, has suffered from dredge and fill projects and residential shoreline development that has caused the loss of 44 percent of the surrounding saltmarsh and mangrove communities, and more than 80 percent of the bay's seagrasses. The result has been a murky, less than healthy system that simply grew worse every year.
Today, meaningful conservation measures such as Florida's net ban, along with tighter development regulations and stormwater runoff controls, plus the hands-on restoration and replacement of vital surrounding marsh and mangrove habitats, are slowly returning the bay to its former healthy condition.
Although we live 200 miles away, my wife Claudia and I had the opportunity to take part in one of those planting projects in February of 1997. When we arrived that day, we discovered a vegetable farm that had been purchased, cleared and contoured by the Southwest Florida Water Management District to imitate a natural tidal marsh complete with a meandering tidal creek. The site was located on the edge of Cockroach Bay which is a smaller, yet valuable estuary that branches off the southeast side of Tampa Bay.
More than 275 volunteers had already assembled, and after a brief orientation, everyone grabbed shovels, plants and fertilizers, broke into teams, and spread out across the barren 10-acre patch of ground. Planting rows had been laid out and each team became a moving assembly line led by diggers, followed closely by fertilizers and planters.
Three different types of grasses were used (smooth cord grass, marsh hay, and high marsh grass) according to elevation. Each sprig was placed in the ground about three feet apart.
A couple hours later we were scarfing down sandwiches and sodas and basking in our accomplishment--16,000 plants had a new home, and a brand new saltmarsh was born.
It was an incredibly satisfying experience. Working together with hundreds of conservation-minded citizens including CCA members, high school and college students and a host of others from all walks and professions, to return something to an environment which gives us so much pleasure.
The real fulfillment, however, came in the year 2000 when Claudia and I returned to the site. At first we couldn't believe it was the same place. The barren dirt and mud were now a thick, rippling sea of green and yellow grasses interspersed with fledgling red and black mangroves. Statuesque alligators and skittish mullet were clearly visible sharing space in the tidal creek. Great blue herons and American egrets stood poised along the water's edge while marsh hawks and osprey soared above the wetland scanning for prey.
It was astounding, where tomatoes once grew was now a thriving ecosystem, as healthy as can be found anywhere in Florida. Already the marsh had assumed its function as nursery, water purifier, and habitat provider for Cockroach Bay and the greater Tampa Bay ecosystem. Although my role in the restoration had been extremely small, I nonetheless felt a great sense of pride for myself and the members of CCA Florida for taking part in the creation of this astounding natural garden.
The Cockroach Bay project, which is just one of many projects being pursued under the direction of Tampa BayWatch with the help of CCA volunteers, has an overall goal of restoring 640 acres of farm land and shell pits to native wetland habitat communities. So far about 120 acres have been restored.
"We've been nibbling at it for six years," said Peter Clark, director of Tampa BayWatch. "When completed it will be the largest saltwater restoration project of its kind in the country."
Tampa BayWatch and the CCA chapter, hope to restore 1200 acres of seagrass, and about 500 acres of saltmarsh communities throughout the Tampa Bay ecosystem in the next 10 years.
"We've already made a big difference in the bay the last 10 years and the fisheries are responding to it," said Steve McCreary, the CCA Tampa chapter's vice-president of habitat restoration.
In fact, explained McCreary, the water has cleaned up so much in some parts of the bay's restored areas that underwater seagrasses, which are traditionally very difficult to transplant, have begun to re-colonize by themselves. "There are places in upper Tampa Bay," said McCreary, "where the water is now so clean you can see down 15 to 20 feet."
"On average," said Clark, "about 50 acres of seagrass are returning to the bay system every year because of improved water clarity which is a result of projects like the Cockroach Bay restoration and improvement in wastewater plants and stormwater runoff."
Another barometer of the overall restoration effort can be found in the results of the annual CCA Florida Tampa Polaroid All-Release Challenge put on every year by the Tampa Chapter. Explained McCreary, a seatrout has to be 16 inches to qualify for a photo entry. Some years not that long ago, not one fish that large was even caught. Now in the seatrout division, the minimum needed to win is at least 10 photos of trout over 16 inches.
Amazing Support
The obvious key ingredient to the success of this huge endeavor has been the volunteers.
"CCA provides a reliable core of volunteers," explained Clark, adding that on average about 200 people show up for each planting, including 30 to 40 CCA members who, because of their previous years of experience, become the all important team leaders. "That's what allows us to do these large plantings," said Clark, "having experienced team leaders to direct the new volunteers."
"Fishing is a stewardship thing," added McCreary. "We're interested in preserving and restoring all aspects of the marine environment that the fish of Tampa Bay are so dependent upon. As fishermen, we want to take a hands-on role in improving the bay system to insure that the fishing that we covet so dearly is here for generations to come."
After nearly a decade of assisting in such projects, the CCA Tampa Chapter has developed a "planting day program" that includes tents and displays, T-shirts, water, lunches, soft drinks and other necessities for attracting and serving a large crowd of volunteers. Tampa BayWatch also advertises locally each time for volunteers and relies on an extensive data base of supporting organizations and clubs. The result is a community approach to habitat restoration that has ramifications far away from the planting site.
Bright Future
"The thing that we've found when we started this effort," said Clark, "is how many people we have that have been wanting to do something to help the environment, they just didn't know where or how. Something like this provides that opportunity."
One of the most gratifying aspects of the planting, which in itself represents a special opportunity, is the number of kids and teenagers taking part in all of the plantings.
"I see kids turn around and come back after six months or a year and get involved in other types of projects. Many become interns in a conservation field, or apply for conservation positions here," said Clark, adding however, that they are not just trying to spawn careers, or make more marine biologists. By merely enlightening them as to the value of the Tampa Bay ecosystem, they will take a base of knowledge into the community as they grow into adults that might help the next time they, or their neighbor, decide to put too much fertilizer on their lawn.
Observed one CCA member during the 1997 planting, "The kids taking part will benefit some day from a cleaner and healthier environment, while for now they have the opportunity to have fun and at the same time learn about their responsibility as stewards of the planet."
Funding is a Key Ingredient
Although many of the plants used in the restoration projects are raised by high school wetland nursery programs operated by science and ecology clubs, or from donor sites planted by CCA members, the projects are still very costly and require additional plants from private vendors.
Many of the Tampa Bay marsh plantings over the years have been funded by the Frank E. Duckwall Foundation through very generous gifts provided to CCA Florida. The funds are used to purchase additional plants and supplies for the projects.
Recently, the foundation helped sponsor the restoration planting of six acres of saltmarsh at another site on Tampa Bay in which more than 230 volunteers made up of CCA Florida members, Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops, college students and a middle school ecology club, planted a total of 18,000 plants. The ecology club had actually grown 3,000 of the plants for the project.
And just last year, again with the financial assistance of the Duckwall Foundation, the volunteers returned to the Cockroach Bay restoration project where they began the restoration of a remarkable 23 acres of inter-tidal upland and open water habitat, setting a record for a single day's effort by planting 24,000 individual plants.
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