Written By Mary Kelley Hoppe
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Snaking through a dense thicket of mangroves at E.G. Simmons Park northwest of Ruskin, Brandt Henningsen pauses at a tiny sunlit clearing. Before him, a forest of red mangrove trees spread their arching roots into the mud, awaiting the incoming tide and the tiny fish that will seek shelter here.
“This to me is just a work of art,” says Henningsen, a senior scientist with the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) Program, which marks its 20th anniversary this year. Straddling a tidal creek winding its way out to Tampa Bay, the flourishing mangrove fringe gives no hint of its rebirth. In the 1960s, dredging to create upland for a new county park erased a mangrove island anchoring this spot, leaving behind a stagnant dead-end boat basin. Decades later, it would be given a new lease on life as one of the first coastal habitat restoration projects designed by the SWIM program.
Modest by today’s standards, the 14-acre restoration at E.G. Simmons Park completed in 1990, was then the largest coastal restoration on Tampa Bay. The site was resculpted to create meandering tidal creeks and salt marshes that eventually were recolonized by mangrove seedlings fl oating in on the current. Mature mangroves now provide a booming nursery, flush with fi sh darting in and around the crimson roots and birds nesting in canopies 20-feet high in places.
The SWIM program has gone on to restore more than 2,000 acres of coastal wetlands and uplands at nearly 60 sites around Tampa Bay. But its reach extends much further. In the state’s southwest district, the program covers a 16-county region, and has completed more than 240 projects on priority lakes, estuaries and rivers within its jurisdiction, from the Rainbow River in Marion County south to Charlotte Harbor. While its main focus is habitat restoration, SWIM also conducts aerial seagrass mapping and water quality studies, and designs stormwater treatment systems.
The legislation creating the state’s Surface Water Improvement and Management program in 1987 was the first concerted effort to restore saltwater and freshwater systems throughout Florida. Implemented by the state’s fi ve water management districts, it provided badly needed funding to begin replenishing critical fisheries and wildlife habitat lost to development. These same wetland and upland habitats not only shield coastal areas against storms and erosion, they also filter pollutants carried off the land in stormwater runoff.
Before the SWIM program, funding for habitat restoration was scarce. “In those days when you got $5,000 to $10,000 you thought you were in the big money,” says Mike Perry, the program’s first executive director, who now oversees the Lake County Water Authority. The new legislation brought more than $5 million to the region in the early years, about half of which was earmarked for Tampa Bay. “Without that, we never would have been able to show the benefits of large scale restoration,” he said.
Tampa Bay was designated a priority water body in the legislation, at the urging of then-Governor Bob Martinez and the Agency on Bay Management, an advisory committee of the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council that lobbied hard for the program.
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[su_quote cite=”Mike Perry”]You can’t just talk about restoration. It was time to put down the pencil and pick up the shovel. [/su_quote]
Fortunes Turn
After decades of pollution and disregard, Tampa Bay was beginning to rebound. Water quality was improving and seagrasses began reclaiming long-barren areas. The turning point came in 1980 when the City of Tampa replaced its aging sewage treatment plant with a new advanced wastewater treatment facility, which reduced by 90% the nitrogen in its discharges to the estuary.
Countering losses and damage to coastal habitats, however, would prove far more difficult. “You can’t just talk about restoration,” said Perry. “It was time to put down the pencil and pick up the shovel.”
Since the 1950s, about half of the marsh and mangrove wetlands rimming Tampa Bay have been dredged and filled, mostly to create dry land for residential development. Some habitats have declined more rapidly than others, especially low-salinity streams that are important nurseries for young snook, redfish
and tarpon. Coastal development also has claimed critical foraging areas for birds like the white ibis. With its curved orange-red beak and habit of traveling in flocks, the ibis is one of the most recognizable of Tampa Bay’s wading birds. But despite its familiarity, it is a species in trouble.
Scientists estimate that its population may have declined by as much as 70% in the last 35 years, prompting the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission to designate it a “species of special concern.”
Ibis nest along the coast but require freshwater crayfish and insects to feed their young, which cannot tolerate the saltwater animals their parents eat. As small freshwater ponds have given way to development, the parents are forced to travel farther and farther inland to find food.
These specialized habitats figure prominently in SWIM restoration plans. “We try to create a mosaic of habitats to support a wide variety of animals,” says Henningsen, who has been with SWIM almost since its inception and designed many of its restoration projects. The agency works closely with the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, whose bay restoration blueprint calls for restoring the historic balance of coastal habitats to 1950s levels.
Those goals include restoring at least 100 acres of low-salinity habitats every five years, while preserving the bay’s 18,800 acres of marshes and mangroves. From 1995 to 2001, more than 378 acres of low-salinity habitats were restored, far exceeding the original target. Another 2,350 acres of marsh and mangrove habitat were restored from 1996 to 2003. Much of the work is credited to SWIM, which today employs a dozen biologists and engineers and has an annual budget of $12 to $14 million. Funding is supplemented by the water management district’s basin boards, local government partners and grants.
“We’ve gone from 20- to 40-acre projects to restoring 200 to 400 acres of habitat a year,” says Jennette Seachrist, director of the local SWIM program.
Meanwhile, the SWIM program is working with cities and counties to clean up pollutants fl owing directly to the bay from stormwater outfalls that drain neighborhoods, roads and commercial areas. Prior to 1984, the state did not require stormwater treatment for developments.
“We look for regional systems so we can treat larger stormwater areas,” says SWIM engineer Janie Hagberg. “But it’s getting harder and harder to find those projects because less land is available.”
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[su_quote cite=” Jan Platt, former Hillsborough County Commissioner”]I think people probably didn’t believe you could restore something back to its natural state, but SWIM has proven that it can be done. [/su_quote]
Land, Partnerships Critical to Success
Conservation lands purchases by state and local partners proved pivotal in the early years of SWIM. In 1987, Hillsborough County voters overwhelming approved a quarter-mil property tax to create the Environmental Lands Acquisition and Purchase Program (ELAPP), patterned after a similar program in Pinellas County. Three years later, Governor Martinez established Preservation 2000, the largest state conservation land acquisition program in the country. The 10-year program bankrolled $300-million a year for the purchase of environmentally sensitive lands with funding from bonds and documentary stamps. The Southwest Florida Water Management District and local governments began acquiring parcels for preservation and restoration, including prime real estate along Tampa Bay.
Public lands have provided vast laboratories in which to test techniques for restoring impaired habitats. Nowhere have those opportunities been more evident than along the southeastern shores of Tampa Bay. Purchases of large and small tracts from the Alafia River to the Manatee River have enabled the SWIM program to restore almost 20 miles of estuarine shoreline. A string of preserves now extends from north of Apollo Beach to Emerson Point in Bradenton, surviving and thriving in the midst of the region’s housing boom.
“Land is being gobbled up (by private developers), but the opportunities are still there,” says Ruskin resident and Southshore activist Mariella Smith, who recently nominated an 1100-acre parcel along the Little Manatee River for county purchase. “You start putting all these pieces together and SWIM is really connecting habitats into wildlife corridors.”
At Cockroach Bay near Ruskin, the SWIM program is in the final phase of a 650-acre restoration touted as one of the most successful coastal restorations in the state. Hillsborough County acquired the farmlands and shell mines bordering the state aquatic preserve in 1991. Three large shell pits, which once supplied fill base for roadways, have been transformed into shallow tidal lagoons that connect to a series of braided channels, islands and coves spilling out into Tampa Bay. In 2006, hundreds of volunteers helped plant 22,500 plugs of marsh grass along the shoreline, accomplishing the feat in under three hours. The lush inlets boast some of the best flats fishing in the bay.
“All three lagoons pop off and send water out into Cockroach Bay, and when the tide is high, allow water back in, creating different salinities for different species of fish,” says Henningsen. One of the ponds treats stormwater runoff from neighboring agricultural lands.
“I think people probably didn’t believe you could restore something back to its natural state, but SWIM has proven that it can be done,” says long-time bay advocate and former Hillsborough County Commissioner Jan Platt, who pressed for SWIM legislation as chairman of the Agency on Bay Management in the late 1980s.
Just across the Manatee County line at Bishop Harbor, restoration continues on the 2,000-acre Terra Ceia State Preserve. Finger-fill canals, all that remains of failed plans for a luxury waterfront community, will be reconstructed into meandering tidal channels punctuated by small islands. More than 400 acres of uplands have already been cleared of invasive Brazilian pepper and Australian pine trees, and replanted with native slash pine, oak trees and wax myrtle.
Nestled between Cockroach Bay and Terra Ceia, on a 2,400-acre parcel once proposed for a new power plant, SWIM is about to begin its biggest transformation yet. The district and Hillsborough County purchased the property, known as the Rock Ponds, from Tampa Electric Company in 2004. Local lore has it that the property was the site of a gaming and drinking establishment popular during the Prohibition era.
The project is likely to be the last of the grand-scale habitat restorations on Tampa Bay, according to Henningsen. Restoration is expected to take 10 years or more.
Public-Private Partnerships
“We’re getting to the point where there aren’t any more large public tracts available on the bay,” says Seachrist. Future projects will be smaller, but she expects plenty of them as local governments face state mandates to clean up impaired waters in their jurisdictions. Officials also hope to forge partnerships with private landowners who control some of the largest and most environmentally significant lands in the bay system.
Hopes may be rising following a 12-acre salt marsh restoration completed in June on an abandoned fish farm near Apollo Beach. TECO had purchased the land straddling Newman Branch Creek as a buffer between its Big Bend power plant and neighboring residential communities. Tom Ries, founder of the nonprofit group Preserving the Environment through Ecological Research (PEER) and a former SWIM biologist, approached TECO about working with SWIM to restore the parcel. TECO agreed to allow public access and placed a conservation easement on the property, guaranteeing that it will never be developed. Ries helped secure federal grants and SWIM chipped in funding and restoration crews. The restoration is adjacent to the utility’s Manatee Viewing Center.
“This could help open the door for other private property owners to work with us,” says Henningsen, who acknowledges that partnerships are more likely to appeal to large companies with sizeable land holdings if issues such as public access can be resolved.
“At the end of the day, I hope this helps people appreciate the foresight of our public land acquisition programs,” he adds. “A hundred years from now, these may be the only green spaces left.”
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[su_tab title=”SWIM Projects”]
Located between St. Petersburg and Gulfport, this 120-acre habitat restoration and stormwater treatment project expands upon the 1995 award-winning Osgood Point restoration. Beginning in 2007, SWIM crews will regrade fill material and mosquito ditches to recreate estuarine and freshwater wetlands and coastal upland habitats. Two stormwater treatment ponds will be constructed to filter polluted runoff from outfalls draining 850 acres of city lands developed before state stormwater rules were enacted. A third treatment area is planned, pending additional land acquisition. The preserve includes nature trails, a canoe/kayak launch, and observation decks overlooking the bayou and Boca Ciega Bay.[/su_box] [su_box title=”#16 Cockroach Bay Aquatic Preserve” box_color=”#4aa396″ radius=”2″] Aquatic Preserve Located near Ruskin, this 500-acre restoration project sponsored by SWIM in cooperation with Hillsborough County and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection will be completed in 2008. Fallow farm fields and shell mining pits have been converted into a mosaic of freshwater, saltwater and upland habitats, including a series of shallow tidal lagoons with graduating salinities to accommodate different species of fish. The lagoons, which connect to a newly created braided creek spilling out into the bay, were constructed by filling deep shell pits on the property. Crews also salvaged an original salt barren after removing 135 tons of trash. Volunteers planted more than 22,000 plugs of marsh grass along the restored shorelines (see image above main article). The preserve includes a boat ramp and paddling trails through mangrove forests. [/su_box]
[su_box title=”#24 Emerson Point Preserve” box_color=”#4aa396″ radius=”2″] Completed in 1999, this 30-acre restoration of tidal channels and lagoons was sponsored by the SWIM program in conjunction with Manatee County. The preserve is home to the Portovent Mound, one of the oldest Indian temple mounds in Florida. More than 180 feet long by 80 feet wide, the flat-topped hill shaded by ancient live oaks was built more than 1,000 years ago by ancestors of the Timucua Indians. The barrier island also features a replica of an Indian midden constructed with recycled fill material from the restoration. Nature trails and an observation tower provide stunning vistas of the bay and Sunshine Skyway Bridge. [/su_box]
[su_box title=”#30 Hendry Delta” box_color=”#4aa396″ radius=”2″] 
Completed in 1989, this three-acre salt marsh restoration at the mouth of Redfish Creek was the SWIM program’s first restoration project. Marsh plants used in the restoration were harvested from a spoil island in Hillsborough Bay. The delta was formed from bay bottom material dredged during the construction of Port Manatee.[/su_box]
[su_box title=”#35 Schultz Preserve” box_color=”#4aa396″ radius=”2″]
Completed in 2004, this 120-acre restoration project at Port Redwing features rolling sand dunes, tidal lagoons, salterns and freshwater wetlands. Dune communities were strategically positioned to protect the northwest shoreline against erosion from waves generated by passing ships. A rolling berm on the south end of the property provides a buffer between the preserve and future port development. The project included creating a winding tidal lagoon punctuated by artificial reefs that are among the largest and most complex in Tampa Bay. The reefs were hand-placed to provide optimum fl ow-through, different sized openings and relief off the bottom. The preserve is named in honor of the first warden of the National Audubon Society’s Tampa Bay Sanctuaries, Fred Schulz, and his wife Idah. It is located in an area known as “the kitchen,” long revered for its seafood bounty.
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Article originally published Summer 2007.
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