Editor’s Desk

Nearly everyone has had to make difficult decisions about how to spend limited resources as we live through the worst recession most of us have ever seen.

When Tampa shut down its Bay Study Group, the community lost scientists who had been at the forefront of the bay’s seagrass recovery. Roger Johansson directed one of the nation’s most intense seagrass monitoring initiatives, supplementing aerial surveys by the Southwest Florida Water Management District with hands-on monitoring that tracked species composition as well as spatial distribution since 1986.

Although employed by the organization that operates the bay’s single-largest contributor of nitrogen, Johansson and the recently retired Walt Avery commanded the respect of their fellow scientists and managers. Johansson has served on the Agency for Bay Management since 1988 and as chair of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program’s Technical Advisory Committee for many years. Avery and Johansson have authored multiple articles documenting the improvements in water quality – and subsequent regrowth in seagrasses – in both Hillsborough Bay and the entire estuary.

And while many of the key staff from the Pinellas County Department of Environmental Management (DEM) have been re-assigned, closing the department is likely to make it more difficult to deal with competing agendas in the state’s most densely populated county. Under the direction of Jake Stowers and more recently Will Davis, the DEM is recognized as one of the best environmental departments in the state. Earlier this year, Davis received the prestigious leadership award from the Florida Local Environmental Resource Agencies, Inc.

Davis helped lead Pinellas County through several contentious issues, from protecting least tern nesting sites to developing a management plan at Fort DeSoto that balanced regulatory and voluntary measures to protect seagrasses from prop scars. The DEM also played a pivotal role in helping to persuade county commissioners to adopt a fertilizer ordinance that will help limit nutrients in stormwater.

With tougher stormwater rules coming from both the state and federal governments, now is the time to provide staff resources who can help implement cost-effective measures that meet stringent new regulations. It also is critical to the Tampa Bay estuary continue to have reliable scientific data for current levels of nutrients like that collected by Johansson, Avery and Davis.

That data may save local governments millions of dollars in the very near future. We hope that decisions made during these tough economic times will not adversely impact Tampa Bay over the long term.

— Vicki Parsons