United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
cxEPA
Office pf Water
(4504F)
EPA842-F-99-QQ4R
December 1999
CHARACTERISTICS
Tampa Bay Watershed
Located on Florida's central Gulf coast, the Tampa Bay estuary is Florida's
largest estuary, encompassing 400 square miles of open water and associat-
ed salt marsh, islands, tidal creeks, and coastal wetlands. Estuaries like
Tampa Bay, where salt and freshwater combine to form a coastal sanctu-
ary are among the most diverse and productive ecosystems in the world.
The blend of bay environments, ranging from underwater meadows
of seagrass to surrounding marshes and uplands, provides shelter and
food for a multitude of diverse wildlife types. More than 85 percent
of all fish, shellfish and crustaceans spend some part of their lives in
the protected estuarine waters of coastal wetlands. Tampa Bay's
islands support major bird breeding colonies where more than
40,000 breeding pairs belonging to some 25 bird species come to
rear their young. The Tampa Bay system also serves as an impor-
tant wintering ground or stopover for many migratory bird species
traveling throughout South, Central and North America.
Salt or tidal marshes occur along the shore- u,_,.L
line where wave action is minimal. These " ._ ,,,'._
marshes, which periodically become submerged, "
support crabs, shrimp, snails, oysters, juvenile fish and a vari-
ety of birds. The pools and tidal creeks that wind through
these marshes serve as primary habitats for sport and com-
mercially important fish. Salt marshes serve as a vital link in
the marine food web, stabilize sediments, buffer uplands from
storms and filter pollutants that run off from the land.
PINELLAS
COUNTY
HILLSBOROUGH
COUNTY
MANATEE
COUNTY
SARASOTA COUNTY
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Estuaries and other coastal and marine waters are national
resources that are increasingly threatened by pollution, habitat
loss, coastal development, and resource conflicts. Congress
established the National Estuary Program- (NEP) in 1987 to provide a
greater focus for coastal protection and to demonstrate practical, inno-
vative approaches for protecting estuaries and their living resources.
As part of the demonstration role, the NEP offers funding for mem-
ber estuaries to design and implement Action Plan Demonstration
Projects that demonstrate innovative approaches to address priority
problem areas, show improvements that can be achieved on a small
scale, and help determine the time and resources needed to apply
similar approaches basin-wide.
The NEP is managed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA). It currently includes 28 estuaries: Albemarle-Pamlico
Sounds, NC; Barataria-Terrebonne Estuarine Complex, LA;
Bamegat Bay, NJ; Buzzards Bay, MA; Casco Bay, ME; Charlotte
Harbor, FL; Columbia River, OR and WA; Corpus Christi Bay, TX;
Delaware Estuary, DE, NJ, and PA; Delaware Inland Bays, DE;
Galveston Bay, TX; Indian River Lagoon, FL; Long Island Sound,
CTandNY; Maryland Coastal Bays, MD; Massachusetts Bays, MA;
Mobile Bay, AL; Mono Bay, CA; Narragansett Bay, RI; New
Hampshire Estuaries, NH; New York-New Jersey Harbor, NY and
NJ; Peconic Bay, NY; Puget Sound, WA; San Francisco Bay-Delta
Estuary, CA; San Juan Bay, PR; Santa Monica Bay, CA; Sarasota
Bay, FL; Tampa Bay, FL; andTillamookBay, OR.
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Tampa Bay receives groundwater and surface water runoff
from a large watershed of 2,300 square miles in area. The
watershed has already been gready altered by urban and
industrial development and by agricultural activities. In this
watershed, 2.4 million people live and work in several major
cities, including Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater. The
population in the three counties surrounding Tampa Bay,
Hillsborough, Pinellas and Manatee counties, is expected to
increase by 20 percent by the year 2010. Tampa Bay faces
the prospect of future impacts resulting from this population
boom, as well as the impacts that have already affected its
water, wetlands and natural resources.
Today, after a century of intensive urban and industrial
shoreline development, the character and ecology of Tampa
Bay and its tributaries have been significandy altered.
Coastal wetland losses have exacerbated shoreline erosion
and contributed to poor or decreased water quality within
the Tampa Bay ecosystem. Nearly half of all the mangrove
forests and salt marshes that once existed in the Tampa Bay
estuary have been destroyed. The loss of these coastal wet-
lands has resulted in major declines in fisheries and wildlife
that depend on these habitats. Populations of economically
important fish, shellfish, bait and food shrimp have dwin-
dled to near-depletion. Scallop and oyster fisheries in the
bay have collapsed.
The Tampa Bay community has responded to this tremen-
dous loss of habitat and decline in estuarine conditions by
undertaking numerous restoration, management, and per-
mitting programs to facilitate die recovery of the bay. For
example, the Tampa Bay Estuary Program funded a pilot salt
marsh nursery program, through Tampa BayWatch. Tampa
BayWatch, incorporated in 1993, is a non-profit environ-
mental stewardship program for die Tampa Bay estuary,
devoted exclusively to the scientific and charitable purpose of
monitoring, restoring, and protecting the marine and wet-
land environments of the bay. Tampa BayWatch programs
seek to build citizen awareness, concern, and participation
through educational outreach.
Tampa BayWatch has established salt marsh nurseries within
the bay region's high school ecology or science clubs. These
student-constructed and maintained nurseries produce salt
marsh grass available for transplanting into habitat restora-
tion projects throughout Tampa Bay. The first high school
wetland nursery was established in 1996. Currently, eleven
school nurseries have been established, and three more are
planned during the 1999/2000 school year. The fourteen
nursery ponds will potentially be capable of producing a
total of 70,000 to 140,000 plants, provided free of charge to
local and state environmental agencies conducting habitat
restoration projects. Ideally, enough salt marsh grasses will
be grown to restore 14 to 20 new acres of salt marsh per
year. This is a significant contribution to the long-term
health and recovery of the community's greatest natural
resource—the Tampa Bay estuary.
The goal of the Tampa BayWatch High School Wetland
Nursery Program is to provide educational outreach to
involve students in hands-on habitat restoration and protec-
tion activities. The High School Wetland Nursery Program
will help to improve the long-term health of the estuary
through a variety of mechanisms:
1. A consistent and inexpensive source of high-quality
salt marsh grasses assists government agencies in
restoring habitat cost-effectively.
2. Student volunteer manpower allows more acreage of salt
marsh to be planted.
3. Measurable improvements in habitat, water quality,
fish and bird populations and recreational
opportunities from these restoration activities.
4. Instilling in students an understanding and appreciation
of the Tampa Bay estuary, the watershed, and the
wildlife that depend on it, raising awareness of
problems, and providing incentives to students to
change behaviors that impact the bay. A student who
has worked to restore bay habitat systems is more likely
to become an enlightened bay user, as well as an
outspoken advocate for the bay.
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Once a school expresses interest in hosting a nursery pro-
gram, they are evaluated for their long-term ability to pro-
vide space and staff to support a salt marsh nursery. After
being selected to participate in the program, the nursery is
constructed with the help of the students by enclosing a. 16-
foot by 16-foot area on the ground with wooden boards.
Plastic pond liner material is placed on the ground to hold
salt water. Native Sportina alterniflom, more commonly
called smooth cordgrass, is planted in a beach sand, vermicu-
lite and peat mixture and then placed in rooting trays within
the nursery. A battery-operated timer system is used to con-
trol flooding with salty irrigation water to mimic natural
conditions. After the original construction costs, the high
school nurseries are self-sustaining with minimal yearly
maintenance costs.
The salt marsh grass can be harvested after a six-to-eight
month growing period. About half of the nursery plants will
be transplanted into a local restoration project while the
remaining portion will be used to restart the school nursery
for another growing season. The transplanting site must be
approved by a local environmental agency, and it must pro- ..
vide the appropriate tidal regime for the salt marsh grass to
grow.
Tampa BayWatch's High School Wetland Nursery Program
has been a very successful community project since its incep-
tion in 1996. Major achievements include:
• Transplantation of approximately 200,000 plants and
restoration of approximately 17 acres of salt marsh,
• Establishment of nurseries at eleven schools, with other
schools expressing interest in joining the program,
• School participation in nine habitat restoration events,
• Active cultivation of 18,500 plants for bay restoration
projects,
• Involvement by approximately 1,000 students each
school year in the nursery program,
• Development of a High School Wetland Nursery
Program Operations Manual in 1997 to facilitate
program expansion—Tampa BayWatch distributed this
manual to school systems, environmental agencies and
other non-profit organizations in the nation to serve as
a model for hands-on bay restoration efforts nationwide,
• Creating networks between students, local scientists and
the public agencies responsible for restoring and
protecting Tampa Bay.
These habitat restoration efforts have won the program a
number of environmental awards, including:
• The 1995 Tampa Bay Association of Environmental
Professionals "Innovative Educational Programs" award,
• The 1996 Society for Ecological Restoration "Project
Facilitation Award,"
• In 1997 Governor Lawton Chiles and the Governor's
Council for Sustainable Florida recognized the
outstanding Environmental Education contribution of
Tampa BayWatch's High School Wetland Nursery
Program,
• The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council's Future of
the Region Environmental Award in 1998.
During the past six years, Tampa BayWatch has learned valu-
able lessons to help improve the program.
• Planning and implementing such a program can take
time. Planning field trips to conduct salt marsh
restoration, for example, can take up to a month or
more. Experience has shown that one transplanting
project per school during a school year is feasible.
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Tampa BayWatch has also discovered that the salt marsh
plants grown in the school nurseries are much higher
quality than plants purchased from a commercial
nursery. This may be due to the fact that school
nurseries are smaller than commercial facilities and the
plants are given the utmost in care and attention.
Problems can be detected sooner and taken care of more
easily. The nursery plants are also allowed to grow
longer in larger rooting trays, allowing a larger plant
and root to form, making transplanting less stressful
to the plants.
Schools and plant nurseries alone cannot meet all of the
demands of the number of regional restoration projects
requiring a large number of salt marsh grasses.
Printed on Recycled Paper
Report Title
Biological Nutrients Removal Project
Buttermilk Bay Coliform Control Project
Georgetown Stormwater Management Project
Texas Coastal Preserves Project
Shell Creek Stormwater Diversion Project
City Island Habitat Restoration Project
Buzzards Bay "Scp Track" Initiative
New Options for Dredging in Batataria-Terrebonne
Coquina Bay Walk at Letlis Key
"Pilot Project Goes Airborne"
Tire National Estuary Program: A Ten-Year Perspective
Rock Barbs In Oregon's Tillamook Bay Watershed
The Weeks Bay Shoreline & Habitat Restoration Project
Evaluation of Shrimp Bycatch Reduction Devices in Texas Coastal Bend Waters
National Estuary Program
Long Island Sound, CT/NY
Buzzards Bay, MA
Delaware Inland Bays, DE
Galveston Bays, TX
Puget Sound, WA
Sarasota Bay, FL
Buzzards Bay, MA
Barataria-Terrebonne Basin, LA
Sarasota Bay, FL
Narragansett Bay, RI
General NEP Discussion
Tillamook Bay, Oregon
Mobile Bay, AL
Corpus Christi, TX
Date
Evaluating Simple, Cost Effective Solutions for Reducing Stormwater and Urban Runoff Santa Monica, CA
Bay Scallop Restoration Project in Chincoteague Bay Annapolis, MD
Clear Creek Wetland Restoration Project Galveston Bay, TX
i:TFpr•"Copies-IJf any of these^publicatioris contactT
National Clearinghouse for En^^£^jj^^
1995
1995
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1995
1995
1995
1997
1997
1997
1997
1998
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1998
1999
1999
1999
Publication #
EPA842-F-95-001A
EPA842-F-95-001B
EPA842-F-95-001C
EPA842-F-95-001D
EPA842-F-95-001E
EPA842-F-95-001F
EPA842-F-97-002G
EPA842-F-97-002H
EPA842-F-97-002I
EPA842-F-97-002J
EPA842-F-98-003K
EPA842-F-98-003L
EPA842-F-98-003M
EPA842-F-98-003N
EPA842-F,-99,-0040
EPA842-E-9S-004P
EPA842-F-99-004Q
Facsimile: '(513) 489-8695
x>EPA
United States
Environmental Protection Agency
(4504F)
Washington, DC 20460
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