2024 STATE OF THE BAY

Dr. Marcus Beck, mbeck@tbep.org, Kerry Flaherty-Walia kfwalia@tbep.org

Tampa Bay Estuary Program

Jan, 2025

WATER QUALITY REPORT CARD

https://tbep-tech.github.io/wq-static/wq.pdf

Management

Regulatory

Two sides to report card, first side showing management outcomes is relevant to TAC, second side relevant to NMC.

MANAGEMENT ACTIONS

• Each bay segment assigned a management action

Management actions defined by both chlorophyll and light attenuation, considers magnitude of exceedance for each year above targets and duration of exceedence from previous four years.

MANAGEMENT RESULTS

Table shows bay segment management outcomes for chlorophyll on the left and light attenuation on the right. Annual averages are compared to management targets. Note that chlorophyll targets exceeded for all bay segments except HB, light attenuation targets only exceeded for LTB. LTB receives “caution” category.

MANAGEMENT OUTCOMES

• Matrix shows attainment of chlorophyll and light attenuation targets
• All segments in 2024 as “Stay the Course”, except LTB as “Caution”
• More info at https://shiny.tbep.org/wq-dash/

Note historical perspective showing long-term bay recovery. Also note OTB as “caution” from 2015 to 2021, but dry years in 2022 and 2023.

REGULATORY THRESHOLDS

• Each bay segment evaluated by chlorophyll-a threshold

Only related to chlorophyll thresholds, magnitude of exceedence, no duration component. Relevant for NMC, not the TAC.

REGULATORY OUTCOMES

• Matrix shows attainment of chlorophyll threshold (red/green only)
• All segments in 2024 met the annual threshold
• More info at https://shiny.tbep.org/wq-dash/

Note historical perspective showing long-term bay recovery. Also note OTB non-attainment in recent years.

CHLOROPHYLL TRENDS

All bay segments show an increase in chlorophyll from last year due to storms, note different y-axis scales. Solid blue line is bay segment management target. Top dotted line is “large exceedence”, +2 standard errors above the target based on historical reference period. Middle dashed line is “small exceedence, + 1 standard error.

2024 CHLOROPHYLL

Map shows annual average chlorophyll at each sample station. Note high values in OTB, northern part of MTB (possibly from Alafia flooding). Also note that segment outcomes are based on site averages.

SEASONAL CHLOROPHYLL

Monthly chlorophyll averages are below medians until August - Debbie and then Helene/Milton. Stays high until December. All sites in October sampled late October except OTB on Oct. 1 (LTB sampled 10/28 so not sure why October values are lower).

OCTOBER CHLOROPHYLL

Emphasize locations with very high chlorophyll in October (west OTB, north HB).

LIGHT ATTENUATION TRENDS

Light attenuation also shows an increase in all bay segments in 2024, except OTB possibly because of locations of major inflows into the bay, i.e., light attenuation can be affected by factors besides chlorophyll (e.g., organic matter from storms). Note fixed y-axes.

2024 LIGHT ATTENUATION

Map shows annual average light attenuation at each sample station. Note high values in OTB, LTB. Interesting that average light attenuation in OTB was still relatively low for potential reasons described in last slide

SEASONAL LIGHT ATTENUATION

Seasonal light attenuation shows similar pattern as chlorophyll, low until storms late summer/fall. Note fixed y-axis across plots.

OCTOBER LIGHT ATTENUATION

Emphasize locations with high light attenuation in October (HB).

EVALUATING SSOs

• FDEP maintains Public Notice of Pollution database
• Reports indicate location, date, contact, and narrative description
• Details in narrative description…

Supplementary analysis to understand potential contributions of SSOs to water quality late 2024. It comes with a lot of caveats and also note that SSOs are not the sole driver of water quality but important to consider.

EVALUATING SSOs

• An example of a spill volume description:

[1] "on saturday november 16 2024 at approximately 1:30 pm staff at the northwest regional water reclamation facility located at 10890 s mobley road in tampa discovered foam billowing from the #3 activated sludge digester. this incident continued off and on until approximately 7:30 am monday november 18 2024. the cause of the release was due to a faulty tank level indicator. this incident released approximately 19000 gallons of digested activated sludge and foam onto the ground. staff was able to stop the overflow by shutting air off to the effected tank and isolating the feed sludge. most of this release was contained on site. however during the cleanup approximately 200 gallons of the release was inadvertently pushed onto adjacent property and into a storm water pond. this stormwater pond is not connected to surface waters of the state. so far approximately 7500 gallons of the release has been vacuumed up and returned to the facility for processing. cleanup efforts are continuing and the effected area will be disinfected with lime.\r\n\r\nregulatory agencies were notified.\r\n"

Parsing estimated spill volumes is tricky. Most of the caveats related to the reported values - an estimate, usually not directly to the bay (but can be), water characteristics differ (loads cannot be calculated), many SSOs have reported volume that is recovered.

SSOs 2017 to present

• 2016 baseline ~200M gallons

Note the high values in 2024 compared to other years but also emphasize baseline 2016 estimate (Hermione, St. Pete SSOs). Public database did not exist prior to 2017.

SSOs 2024 by month

Clear seasonal signal associated with storms, starting in August (Debbie)

2024 SEAGRASS TRANSECT RESULTS

• Similar as last year, but species and bay segment differences
• More info at https://shiny.tbep.org/seagrasstransect-dash/

Note increase in Halodule

2024 SEAGRASS TRANSECT RESULTS

• Losses observed in Old Tampa Bay, gains in others

Mention areal maps forthcoming. Preliminary look at draft results suggests similar outcome in coverage.

WATER QUALITY TAKE HOME

• All segments provisionally exceed chlorophyll management target except HB, LTB also exceeded light penetration target pushing it to “Caution”
• All segments provisionally meet regulatory thresholds
• Adaptive capacity of the bay is high coming off dry years, reduced with storms
• OTB still a marginal bay segment, continued seagrass loss - is this an acceptable condition??

Take home here is that we’re coming off dry years, next year may not be the same given the storm effects. Do not lose focus on OTB due to disconnect between water quality outcomes and continued seagrass loss.

NEKTON RESULTS

• Nekton index reports on the health of fish and inverts
• Responds to water quality and habitat degradation
• 2023 results show all bay segments as caution, except OTB
• More info at https://shiny.tbep.org/nekton-dash/

NEKTON RESULTS

• Most bay segments show recovery from red tide, OTB marginal

BENTHIC RESULTS

• Benthic index reports on the health of aquatic organisms in or near the bay bottom
• Responds to pollutants that can accumulate in the sediment
• 2023 results similar to previous years, except MTB now fair
• More info at https://tbep-tech.github.io/tbeptools/articles/tbbi

2024 HABITAT RESTORATION

NUMBER OF PROJECTS: 2022-2024

HABITAT MASTER PLAN PROGRESS

FOCUSING RESTORATION EFFORT

Prioritize

Keep it up

Doing fine

Seagrass, salt marsh, freshwater wetlands

Oyster bars, uplands (coastal/non-coastal)

Mangroves

• Additional info: https://tbep.org/habitat-master-plan-update

Questions??

Marcus Beck, mbeck@tbep.org

Kerry Flaherty-Walia, kfwalia@tbep.org