We Are in a Marathon to Help Repair Our Water Quality!
Be Informed and Take Action!
Waterbodies are the ultimate receivers of everything.
What’s good for recreation and habitat is good economics:
The quality of our waterbodies is a huge concern not only for recreational use, but for our local and regional economy. This is true statewide and here in Sarasota as documented by the economic study completed by the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program. In Sarasota and Manatee counties:
· Bay-related activities support 21,000 jobs
· Property value uplift associated with proximity to the bay is worth $3.6 billion
· Visitors spend more than $15 million on fishing licenses, gear, and boat rentals. (1)
Diminished water quality and associated harmful algal blooms (red tide, for example) have resulted in diminished economic returns for our state, and specifically for our local economy. (2)
And the problem seems to be gettingworse:
The latest survey (2020) of seagrass coverage in Sarasota Bay has just been released: sea grass has declined by 18 % in two years.3 This means that Sarasota Bay LOST 2313 acres of sea grass BEFORE recent events at Piney Point.
WHY DO YOU CHOOSE TO LIVE HERE?
Is it a job, or the weather, the access to rivers, bays, and beaches? Whatever your reasons, we all have similar goals in maintaining the security, integrity, and enjoyment of our natural resources around us. But as each decade passes, the security of our resources, especially our water quality, is slipping further away.
Our waterways are being assaulted from multiple directions—here’s more information than you ever wanted to know, but it is what you need to know.
Our state is surrounded on three sides by water therefore, our land-based activities directly influence our waterways:
· Everything we construct changes the flow of water across the land into our waterways.
· Every chemical, every piece of debris we add to the land surface has the potential to find its way into our waterways.
The latest survey (2020) of seagrass coverage in Sarasota Bay has just been released: sea grass has declined by 18 % in two years.(3 ) This means that Sarasota Bay LOST 2313 acres of seagrass BEFORErecent events at Piney Point.
Add to that:
#1. Sewage spills and wastewater plant discharges,
#2. The industrial discharges from Piney Point,
#3. The inefficiency of stormwater ponds required to be constructed with each new development, and
#4. Then day-to-day activities of each of our residents.
It would appear the resultant economic and environmental damage to our quality of life is potentially staggering.
We care about seagrass, a filter, because it is an indicator of water quality, is the base of the food chain for a majority of commercial fish species, and it holds carbon, which mediates climate.
· Seagrass is an indicator of bay health; the more grass the more species diversity.
· Seagrass is a primary food for manatees, yet the FWC reports that, statewide and especially on the east coast, many more manatee deaths this year are tied to inadequate food supplies…inadequate sea grass. (4,5)
Seagrasses are also being diminished by an overgrowth of macroalgae (seaweeds) which are a natural part of the bay ecosystem. However, when macroalgae grow excessively they can cause harm to seagrasses—these overgrowth events are occurring with increasing frequency and magnitude, here and worldwide and are thought to be tied, in part, to increased nutrient levels (6)—one more reason to reduce nutrient loading (especially nitrogen) into our waterways. When seagrass disappears, some manatees have eaten macro-algae that the FWC has speculated led their death. (7)