2024 STATE OF THE BAY
Tampa Bay Estuary Program
Jan, 2025
SEAGRASS AND POLLUTION
SEAGRASS AND POLLUTION
TAMPA BAY WATERSHED
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.
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 Top dotted line is “large exceedence”, +2 standard errors above the target based on historical reference period.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).
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.
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.
EVALUATING SSOs
FDEP maintains Public Notice of Pollution database
Not a perfect database - an estimate, usually into a storm drain or pond, usually not raw sewage, some recovered
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
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”
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
RESTORATION LOCATIONS
RESTORATION PROJECTS OVER TIME
HABITAT MASTER PLAN PROGRESS
FOCUSING RESTORATION EFFORT
Seagrass, salt marsh, freshwater wetlands
Oyster bars, uplands (coastal/non-coastal)
