7 minute read
BTT Partners with Tampa Bay Waterkeeper
BY CHRIS HUNT
A grant from Bonefish & Tarpon Trust to the Tampa Bay Waterkeeper could mark the genesis of a comprehensive water-quality monitoring effort to search out the sources of pollution in Tampa Bay and offer stakeholders opportunities to clean up the largest estuary in Florida.
As part of its larger Win Back Our Water campaign, BTT’s grant to the local water quality watchdog organization will spur scientific data collection from select locations in Tampa Bay. By collecting water quality data from a handful of chosen locations, with the help of the University of South Florida, TBWK hopes to pinpoint sources of contaminants like fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) and even industrial heavy metal runoff. Armed with the data, the organization can then approach local decision-makers and assess options to deal with the pollution problems.
“This is significant, because we’re learning that many of the waters most impacted by pollution in Tampa Bay are also important nurseries for our tarpon, snook and redfish,” said Justin Tramble, Executive Director of Tampa Bay Waterkeeper. “But it’s not just the fish that are impacted—this pollution is harmful to people, too.”
Perhaps the best possible outcome from this testing effort will be the ability to move beyond simple public awareness. Armed with scientific data identifying point-sources of pollution, groups like TBWK and BTT could directly address municipal, regional and state regulatory agencies and lawmakers, and begin to work toward solutions.
“Over the past few years, we’ve been able to generally understand the types of pollution that are found in the bay,” Tramble said. “But it’s been kind of a redundant effort. We can say, ‘Such-and-such place is testing positive for fecal indicator bacteria. Tell your friends.’ This grant will help us take a deeper dive, to drill down and find out why certain sites are testing high for FIB.”
“Then,” Tramble continued, “we’ll be able to go to the municipalities and recommend some actionable solutions to remove or reduce the pollutants in our water.”
Fecal indicator bacteria are largely attributed to human waste runoff, perhaps from faulty wastewater treatment efforts or from aging and failing septic systems. Pinpointing the source or sources of this bacterial pollution in Tampa Bay is important, both for the watershed’s economically vital fisheries, and also for overall human health in the region.
The grant, too, will help TBWK with its efforts to identify sources of industrial heavy metal pollution found in Tampa Bay’s waters. For the most part, it’s believed these pollutants come from stormwater runoff from city streets, agricultural fields and plants and factories. If point-sources can be identified, Tramble said, his group can then work with all involved stakeholders to recommend more or better stormwater treatment efforts.
Also, by finding areas that consistently test higher for pollutants, and overlaying that data with known gamefish nursery waters, TBWK and BTT can aim restoration and cleanup efforts more precisely.
“It will help us figure out what needs to be done to help protect and restore this important juvenile fish habitat that’s being impacted by poor water quality,” Tramble said. “What we’re finding now, unfortunately, is that areas that are the most fragile and most important for juvenile fish are also the most abused.”
Areas that are vital to juvenile tarpon, snook and redfish, like seagrass beds and protected mangrove creeks, often fall victim to the elevated nutrient levels that are associated with FIB contamination, Tramble said. The nutrients remove dissolved oxygen from the water, choking out grass beds and removing important juvenile fish refugia from the ecosystem.
Dr. Jody Harwood, a biologist with the University of South Florida, is executing the water sampling, and she’s got years of experience with this kind of work. With the help of the BTT grant and on behalf of TBWK, she hopes to be able to match pollution with pollution sources on the microbial level.
It may seem like a simple task, she admits, but it’s much more nuanced.
“I call it the ‘Florida miasma,’” she said. “Urban water quality sucks, and you can quote me on that. It’s a death by a thousand cuts, because the pollution is so varied. It comes from humans, organic sediment from agriculture, stormwater runoff, animals… you name it.”
But, she said, this monitoring effort offers some real hope, because, at the most basic level, it will allow researchers to pull specific bacteria and virus DNA collected from water samples and hopefully match it with pollution sources. The science behind the effort is impressive—researchers will be able to identify genetic markers in the collected water and bring the pollution into crisp focus. For instance, Harwood said, if the DNA is associated with the human gastrointestinal tract, the pollution is coming from human waste.
The idea, Harwood explained, is to start the monitoring in some fairly contained areas, like in the largely enclosed Bayboro Harbor near USF-St. Petersburg, or around the Davis Island Dog Beach.
“The best approach is to start in the contained areas and then kind of work your way out,” she said. Researchers will test for sewage contamination and sleuth out genetic markers associated with humans, dogs and other organisms. “Then we can bring the results to the table and hopefully show the need for a larger study. And, if we see an indicator of sewage pollution, it gives local entities the evidence they need to take the data to a higher level and to take the next steps.”
This kind of monitoring effort is definitely a marathon and not a sprint. But, with help from BTT, Harwood’s team, on behalf of TBWK, could begin to identify the most noxious sources of pollution in Tampa Bay and offer a roadmap for eventual cleanup.
“Hopefully,” Harwood said, “the results will help build momentum for more science with the end result being cleaner water for fish and for the people of Tampa Bay.”
BTT’s Win Back Our Water campaign, of which this effort is a part, is a wide-ranging water-quality campaign that seeks to identify and address sources of pollution, ranging from the presence of FIB in estuarial waters to Everglades restoration and pollution from pharmaceuticals and glyphosate pollution associated with herbicides used to attack invasive plants across Florida.
Chris Hunt is an award-winning journalist and an enthusiastic fly fisher who splits his time between the mountains of eastern Idaho and the blackwater rivers of North Florida. He writes about conservation, travel and the fly fishing culture all over the world.
