Here in South Carolina, our marine world revolves around one thing: Oysters. Oysters provide habitat for up to 130 species, can filter up to 50 gallons of water per day, serve as a food source for dozens of predators in the Lowcountry, aid in erosion control, the list goes on. Oysters are our all-stars; they are the lifeblood of the Lowcountry. Being such an integral part of our ecosystem makes oysters a “keystone species:” a plant or animal that produces a major impact on its ecosystem and is considered essential to maintaining optimum ecosystem function or structure.

500 miles away, across the state of Florida, lives another keystone species that is just as important to its ecosystem as oysters are to ours. Over the last century, we’ve seen its population undergo dramatic changes due to habitat degradation, dirty water influx, and pollution. The keystone species in question is seagrass, specifically the seagrass in Flordia’s Tampa Bay. Thankfully, organizations like Tampa Bay Waterkeeper have dedicated their life to protecting and restoring seagrass populations in Florida’s largest open-water estuary; here’s how Toadfish is getting involved and how you can support our collective efforts.

The story of seagrass struggles starts nearly a century ago, back in the 1950s. It was, truly, the invention of air conditioning that allowed people to mass-populate South Florida and, consequently, led to the uprooting and destruction of millennia-old natural habitat. This urbanization quickly spiraled into routine sewage water dumps that led to massive algal blooms, preventing sunlight penetration to the seafloor and restricting seagrass’ ability to photosynthesize. By the mid-1980s, Tampa Bay’s seagrass population was half of what it was 20 years prior, and the prognosis for the bay was not good; something needed to be done. 

We headed out of Davis Island Boat Ramp around daybreak to take a tour of the Bay and learn more about its past, present, and future. While we cruised around on his 18ft Hell's Bay Marquesa, Capt. Dustin gave us some insight into how Tampa Bay came to be. “Historically," Capt. Dustin shared, "Tampa Bay was actually a dead estuary. In 1950, Tampa Bay had almost 50,000 acres of seagrass, but over the 70s, 80s, and 90s, we had such bad water quality issues that we lost half of that.” Capt. Dustin explained that “the water was so bad that [on] people’s houses along Bayshore, their siding was turning yellow, and their silverware was staining yellow. Once those people became impacted, the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972, which changed the trajectory of the bay.” Capt. Dustin emphasized how advocacy groups like the Tampa Bay Estuary Foundation (Tampa Bay Waterkeeper did not exist at the time) were integral in educating Bay Area residents on clean water and how they played a role in the bay’s health.

Tampa Bay's health steadily improved through the mid-2010s, but today, the bay is once again facing significant challenges. We asked Capt. Dustin about some of the largest issues currently affecting the bay, and his answer was quick and potent. “Things like Piney Point,” he said, “3 years ago, in 2021, we had the largest fish kill we’ve had in 70 years.” Shocked, especially after learning about the progress made over the last 70 years, we inquired more. “The state of Florida is rich in Phosphate,” explained Capt. Dustin, “from dinosaurs and other animals that died millions of years ago, back when Florida was underwater. To excavate these fossil bones and convert them into things like fertilizer, mining companies use a high-pressure water system. This process creates a nutrient-rich wastewater byproduct called Phosphogypsum."

Capt. Dustin explained that the water discharged from the phosphogypsum stack was rich in nitrogen, a steroid for algae growth. Capt. Dustin shared with us that algae in the bay are natural, but unusually high levels of nitrogen in the bay supercharge algal growth, leading to immense, uncontrollable algae blooms. The nitrogen surge from the Piney Point discharge led to some of the worst algal blooms, like “red tide,” the bay has ever seen. These blooms caused oxygen-poor water and created dense algae mats on the water’s surface, killing marine life and preventing sunlight from reaching seagrass on the bay’s floor.

“[The Piney Point crisis] was in March/April of 2021,” said Capt. Dustin, “and I started seeing dead fish in June of 2021. And then, for the next 2-3 months after that, we had the largest fish kill we’ve had in 70 years. The state and city picked up around 1700 tons of dead marine life: snook, cobia, redfish, baitfish, catfish, manatees, dolphins - everything you could think of that lives inside the bay we found dead. It was a disaster. I thought everything was dead. I thought I was out of a job. I didn’t think, honestly, that Tampa Bay was going to bounce back from it.” 

Miraculously, Capt. Dustin shared that the bay recovered quicker than anyone anticipated; Mother Nature continues to defy the exceptionally bleak odds that we give her. At some point, however, she will reach her breaking point. If we, as humans, continue our reckless, negligent path of destruction, Mother Earth's surrender will become inevitable; we will have left her no choice but to concede.