November 1999

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November 9,1999

Restoration will leave bay healthy, if not picture-perfect, scientists say

 The clear-as-gin water and lush sea-grass beds that made Florida Bay's reputation as a bonefishing paradise in the 1980s are gone - and scientists are saying good riddance.  A ``restored'' Florida Bay probably won't be quite as pretty, but it will be healthier and home to more diverse and plentiful marine life, leading researchers said during a five-day meeting of about 200 bay scientists last week at the Westin Beach Resort here. The big worry for directors of the federal and state government's $11 billion restoration of South Florida's ecosystem is that the public -- fishing enthusiasts, sightseers, tourism promoters and others -- won't like a bay with murkier water and scruffier grass beds. ``There are a lot of people that look back to conditions in the 1980s as the conditions they remember and expect in Florida Bay,'' said John Hunt, manager of bay research for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. ``We must prepare the public for the expectation that the restored bay might be different than they expect. 

``I don't think this is a trivial issue.''  People's perceptions of the bay count for a lot in the Florida Keys, where fishing, boating and diving fuel a tourism economy and serve as the locals' main recreational pursuits. Consider the public outcry in the Upper Keys in recent weeks as ``chocolate brown'' water began trickling into the estuaries from the mainland. Outraged Keys residents complained that their precious bay was being poisoned by filthy water flowing into the bay from suburbs and farms.  But scientists who monitored the health of Florida Bay, Manatee Bay, Blackwater Sound and Barnes Sound found little reason to worry.  The brownish tint of the water was caused by tannins from the mangroves, the milky white by stirred-up sand and the greenish tint by ripped-up sea grasses, the scientists reported. Fish and sponge deaths were limited to Blackwater Sound and were caused by the freshening of the salty sound rather than by pollution, they said.  ``We are not alarmed by what we see,'' said William Nuttle, executive officer of the Florida Bay Science Program. ``In fact, it may be that the scientific measurements being made in the wake of these events . . . will end up providing the critical response of the bay to rainfall and runoff that is required to guide restoration.''    Read more....
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Credit:
Everglades photograph courtesy Philip Greenspun

 

Revised:  03/25/03