I like to play a game called “Before My Time.”
The game involves a lot of imagination and at least a little knowledge.
Round one might require imagining jalopies bouncing across the old wooden bridge from Cortez to Bradenton Beach.
In another round, I might wonder what it was like to place a meat order at the old IGA when it was an old IGA.
More research would go into the game when imagining when Cubans created fish camps on the shores of Sarasota Bay or indigenous peoples harvested shellfish from the bay. For this, I suggest reading the draft of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program’s comprehensive conservation and management plan, posted in June to the SBEP’s website at sarasotabay.org.
This column is the first in a series on the 208-page document.
The various updates of the plan — from the first in 1995 to versions in 2010, 2014 and now 2021 — focus on science but passion for the bay, curiosity about history and care for writing.
You’ll get a flavor in the 2021 draft: “The bay’s iconic beauty, abundant fish and shellfish, and charismatic birds, dolphins, manatees and sea turtles attracted and sustained residents from early indigenous peoples to Cuban fishers, to post World War II couples and their Baby Boomer kids.”
The plan is a science-based, community-driven blueprint to protect and restore the bay, examining water quality, watershed habitats, fish and wildlife, community role in protecting the bay and, to begin, an introduction to the greater Sarasota Bay estuarian system.
Estuaries — partially enclosed coastal waterbodies where saltwater from the ocean mixes with freshwater from rivers and creeks — provide habitat for 80% of fish and shellfish. They’re vital ecosystems and to economies.
The greater Sarasota Bay Estuarine System is a 50-mile long coastal lagoon and its interconnected Gulf waters, bays and tidal creeks link a mosaic of habitats — seagrass meadows, hardbottom, oyster reefs, beaches and salty and fresh wetlands.
But the bay, altered by urban and agricultural development, shows signs of stress — wastewater and stormwater pollutants, waterway alterations and disruptions, introduction of invasive and nuisance species, overharvesting and climate change.
I’ll be looking at these stress factors in the weeks ahead, along with examining how SBEP hopes to advance a community vision for the bay that includes “abundant seagrass meadows teeming with fish and shellfish, well-developed oyster reefs filtering water and providing essential habitat for fish and birds, living vegetated coastal wetlands and shorelines filtering runoff and protecting the coast, a mosaic of uplands, freshwater wetlands and tidal creeks … and unimpeded vegetated dunes and sandy shorelines along Gulf beaches.
While I like to play “Before My Time,” it’s vital to engage in this time for “after my time.”
About the SBEP
Sarasota Bay was named an estuary of national significance by the U.S. Congress in 1989. The Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, dedicated to protecting and restoring the bay, is one of 28 such programs in the United States and a member of the Association of National Estuary Programs.
A timeline for the bay
1000s: Indigenous people inhabit the area. Shell middens still shape estuary shorelines.
1800s: Cubans establish fish camps on the bayshore, trading mainly in mullet and mullet roe.
Late 1800s: Dredging of the Intracoastal Waterway begins in Sarasota Bay, leading to the creation of many dredge-spoil islands.
Early to mid-1900s: Large-scale land reclamation projects drain thousands of acres of freshwater marsh across the state and coastal development intensifies.
1972: Congress passes the federal Clean Water Act.
1972: Florida’s Wilson-Grizzle Act requires wastewater treatment plants discharging to southwest Florida estuaries, including Sarasota Bay, to upgrade their standards or divert 100% to reclaimed use.
1982: Florida’s stormwater rule goes into effect, requiring municipal stormwater systems to manage nutrients.
1989: The Environmental Protection Agency recognizes Sarasota Bay as an “estuary of national significance.”
2008: Seagrass acreage surpasses the restoration target.
2011: Nutrient criteria is established for area bays, setting limits to protect Sarasota and Manatee waterways from nutrient over-enrichment.
2018: The last regular, permitted wastewater discharge into the bay — from the Siesta Key Water Reclamation plant — is removed.
— Lisa Neff