With manatees in crisis, don't let developers kill seagrass here; plant it there | Opinion

Lindsay Cross

Guest columnist

Many newsworthy events happened in 2021, but Florida's record number of 1,101 manatee deaths might top the "worst" list. Now, a fast-moving bill in Tallahassee may further endanger them.

Manatees are emblematic of Florida’s springs and coastal areas. They feed on underwater grass and a 1,000-pound adult can eat 100 pounds of vegetation each day.

This past year’s deaths are primarily attributable to massive seagrass losses caused by polluted water. Seagrass requires clean water to grow. When too many pollutants (nitrogen and phosphorus) enter our water from fertilizer and human or animal waste, it feeds undesirable algae, including toxic blue-green algae and red tide.

Algae cloud the water, limiting sunlight to the seafloor, causing seagrass to die. Without enough of this vital food source, manatees starve to death.

An opposing view:Seagrass restoration via mitigation bank another tool to improve water quality | Opinion

Responders with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission create a visual barrier for manatees in the temporary feeding site.

While seagrass declines have occurred statewide, no area has been harder hit than the Indian River Lagoon. Over the past 12 years, this economic and ecological centerpiece, encompassing seven counties and 40% of Florida’s east coast, has lost approximately 58% of its seagrass, about 46,000 acres.

This ecological collapse demands an all-hands-on-deck moment, and government agencies and nonprofit organizations are taking unprecedented action, like supplemental feeding, to curtail this deadly trend.

But in Tallahassee, some lawmakers are actually looking for ways to make it easier, not harder, to destroy seagrass.

2022 Florida legislative session:Here are 8 environmental bills we're watching

Manatee feeding:FWC expands South Florida site in hopes sea cows eat provided lettuce

Carter Henne (left), of Sea & Shoreline, a full service Florida based aquatic restoration firm, loads trays of seagrass into a float for coworker Katie Kramer to bring out to the crew planting the seagrass in the Indian River Lagoon at Tucker Cove on Monday, Dec. 7, 2020 near Fort Pierce Inlet Stare Park in Fort Pierce. "Planting seagrass is viral to a healthy estuary, and without seagrass, you don't have a thriving, heathy estuary," Henne said. "It's critically important to do this because it provides food, it provides shelter, and it clears the water. Reestablishing it doesn't turn back all the perils of time, but it helps."

Rep. Tyler Sirois, R-Merritt Island, and Sen. Ana Maria Rodriquez, R-Doral, have sponsored bills (HB349/SB198) to create seagrass mitigation banks, an idea that was introduced unsuccessfully in 2021 by Rep. Toby Overdorf, R-Stuart. The concept is to authorize for-profit entities to create “banks” on publicly-owned submerged lands. This would allow developers to destroy seagrass in one area and write a check so it can be grown elsewhere, possibly hundreds of miles away.

While seemingly well-intentioned, it could enable more destruction of the little remaining seagrass we have.

Mitigation is already used in Florida to offset unavoidable losses to wetlands when developers fill them in to create new subdivisions, roads, or strip malls. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection prefers developers or road builders to pay money to a private investment bank that creates wetlands somewhere else, often on unproductive agricultural land. It’s a lucrative business.

Growing seagrass, however, is more complicated than simply plopping some plants in the ground. If you plant grass in a submerged area that is polluted or has sub-optimal conditions, the grass will die.

The science behind transplanting is still evolving, but the success rate worldwide is dismal, hovering around 37%. Even in Florida, where biologists have worked for decades honing the best techniques, research shows that transplanted grass is not as thick as natural beds.

Lindsay Cross, Florida Conservation Voters

Transplanted grass can take years or decades to expand and be comparable to natural, healthy beds. Scientists often plant faster-growing pioneer species, like shoal grass, with the hopes that it will be replaced, over many years, with more durable grasses, like turtle grass. The thicker, deeper-growing turtle grass can withstand a few years of bad water quality, whereas finer, shallower-growing species often cannot.

In short, destroying 100% of seagrass in one area with a small chance that it will regrow somewhere else is a gamble we shouldn’t be taking — especially now.

Our seagrasses are hanging by a thread and food will be dangerously scarce for our manatees this year. Tallahassee lawmakers should be doing everything they can to protect our existing seagrass and fix our water quality so that new seagrass can grow back naturally, instead of pretending we can solve our problems simply by taking private money to offset public harm. Tallahassee leaders should kill this bill before it kills any more of our manatees.

Lindsay Cross is the water and land policy director for Florida Conservation Voters, Tallahassee. During 14 years at the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, she worked on improving water quality and restoring seagrass and mangrove habitats in the Tampa Bay ecosystem. A Democrat, she is a candidate for Florida House District 68.