What Could Be Causing The Seagrass To Die Off?

statewide ban on lawn fertilizers & herbicides. Ban st augustine grass. Provide tax break on property taxes or incentive to xeric scape your yard. Quota on new residents per year who would also have to meet certain criteria to move here. Extreme measures must be taken population growth is not slowing down and will only continue to ruin our state.

I’ve been guiding and fishing the waters of Tampa Bay for over 30 years now. I grew up on Davis Islands and fished every part of the bay from the Hillsborough River, which used to be Snook City to the piers of Fort DeSoto.

As a kid, most times I would opt for being dropped off at the piers on Fort DeSoto because I didn’t want to go with my parents offshore. They would pull the boat around and I would catch them bait with my large cast nets. Some days there were times I would have to have other men help me lift the net, usually an 8 footer, to get it over the railing, and many times, some of the best fishing I ever saw, was when the net was solid 6-inch Spanish Sardines. As you know, those days are gone and I blame the fisheries regulators for that. I also remember when the commercial netters crashed that fishery upon reaching their 9 million (pounds or something) numbers. IMHO, the Spanish Sardine was the fish candy of all baits back in those days.

I also got to see the crash of the Bayport/Homosassa Tarpon fishery. Funny (being facetious) the afternoon runs on an outgoing tide back to the Weekie Wachee river were predominantly sewage smelling events. For that fishery crash, I blame the loss of the aquifer which was at half-flow of 70 million gallons down from 140 when I stopped fishing Tarpon seasons up there approximately 10-12 years ago. I would also blame the commercial shrimp overfishing that exponentially increased offshore.

So really, most of these problems seem to be multi-pronged events. Homosassa decreased amount of freshwater from the 4 main rivers and septic tank runoff to the large Tarpon’s vacation and destination paradise. And Tampa Bay, yard and septic tank runoff, municipality sanitation releases by the tens and hundreds of thousands of gallons.

To finish, I must say though that in the last 30 years I have never seen as much seagrass destruction as has happened with and since the Piney Point release of 215 million gallons of polluted wastewater and the subsequent murder of the southern part of Tampa Bay, especially around Fort DeSoto, in and around the Skyway area.

And one last thing, please join Captains For Clean Water at https://captainsforcleanwater.org/ and also do a little homework to vote environmentally friendly politicians into YOUR government.

High Springs Florida here. All of our storm drainage flows into the Santa Fe River which flows into the Suwannee River. Drives me crazy these tank trucks spraying fertilizer, insect control and herbicides. They spray the entire yard, doesn’t matter if it needs it or not, once every month and when they are done, they plant a nice little sign that says, do not let children or pets walk on the lawn for 3 or 4 days. Okay, that right there tells me the stuff they are spraying is pretty toxic. And what doesn’t soak into the ground heads right to the river. In this part of Florida, we have hundreds of springs that are filling with green alga. Experts contribute this growth to over fertilization. Where does the spring water come from? The aquafer. I’m no expert, but I am a thinker, this tells me all of these poisons and fertilizers soak into the ground are going right into the aquafer. And where does Florida get most of its drinking water? Yep. Now, if you ask the guy driving the tank truck, he’ll tell you it’s all perfectly legal. And he’s right. So how do we stop it? Homeowners need to use a little common sense and stop worrying what the neighbors think about their lawn.