The eyes were on the ugly.
And the noses were pinched by visitors July 9 to Neal Preserve on the west end of Perico Island on Anna Maria Sound.
The water near the shore of the Manatee County park appeared motionless, covered by thick mats of a brown-green muck.
The stench could be sniffed out from the parking lot and multiple visitors to the preserve later asked via social media, “Is it the sewage?”
It was an expected question, given the smell and the appearance of the muck following a sewage spill in June from a wastewater line between Longboat Key and the mainland.
It probably wasn’t sewage by the shore at Neal or the One Particular Harbour Marina, also on Anna Maria Sound at the west end of Perico Island, but the muck — known by locals as “brown gumbo” — might be sewage-related.
Testing may tell.
“It looks from our experience to be a lyngbya-like bloom,” Justin Bloom, executive director of Suncoast Waterkeeper, an environmental watchdog organization focused on water quality and water policy, said July 8. “We took samples and sent them to the state lab in St. Pete.… They are going to test and hopefully will be able to identify the bloom and its concentration.”
Bloom said another question to answer is whether there’s a connection between the sewage spilled and the bloom’s appearance.
“We’re paying a lot of attention to this,” he said. “The question has been posed: ‘Is there a relationship?’ We don’t know. But we know there’s a relationship between algae blooms and excess nutrients. And 26 million-28 million gallons of sewage brings with it a massive amount of nitrogen.”
Sewage in Sarasota Bay
The sewage spilled from a pipeline servicing Longboat Key that carries about 2 million gallons of wastewater a day.
The spill began as early as June 17 and ended June 30. Initial reports from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection indicated 26 million-28 million gallons of raw sewage seeped into Sarasota Bay from the break.
But the town of Longboat Key, in a press statement July 8, said, “It is unknown at this time how much material leaked from the pipe, but we believe it may be considerably less than preliminary estimates.”
The estimates will be refined, based on a third-party investigation into the leak point, system flows and hydraulic analysis, according to the statement signed by town manager Tom Harmer.
The town was working with the DEP, as well as Environmental Science Associates, a consulting firm, on testing, monitoring and investigating the incident.
The forcemain leak occurred about 350 feet inland from the waters of Sarasota Bay on a mangrove-covered area at Long Bar Pointe, which is owned by developer Carlos Beruff.
Aerial photographs at the site, posted on social media by Suncoast Waterkeeper, showed excavation of the mangrove forest, which was required to reach the spill site. It is not known how much of the forest was damaged or destroyed.
Additional details released by Longboat Key July 8 and in a statement from Harmer include:
“The leaked material was diffused within a large mangrove-populated area and a significant portion of the leaked material remains.”
The mangroves provide a natural treatment, according to the town, and ESA indicated no actions are recommended to the land area at this time.
- Initial testing did not indicate “any significant water quality concerns associated with the leak within Sarasota Bay,” the town stated, adding the amount of sewage that migrated into the bay is not known.
“There is also no observed discharge plume from the land to the bay edge nor extending waterward at this time,” the town said.
Harmer said July 10 that “though the leak was not directly under the bay and the pipe was not discharging directly into the bay, the town staff indicated to the FDEP that it is possible some of the discharge reached the bay.”
Bloom told The Islander July 8 that Suncoast Waterkeeper was conducting more water sampling near the spill site and the Florida Department of Health also was testing water quality, in addition to Longboat Key and the DEP monitoring.
“So far, those results don’t show widespread water quality impacts,” Bloom said.
“We were fortunate that there wasn’t more impact,” he also said. “And we were super-fortunate that the spill didn’t occur under the bay. That was the nightmare scenario.”
And it remains the nightmare scenario.
Town officials have discussed replacement of the pipeline and recently outlined a design and permitting process for a “redundant” pipeline.
“We really need to prioritize maintaining our environmental infrastructure, including our sewage systems,” Bloom said, adding that Sarasota Bay is resilient, but “there’s a tipping point.”
Did you know?
Suncoast Waterkeeper monitors water quality in the region and maintains a database of test results on its website.
For more information, go online to suncoastwaterkeeper.org and click on the tab for water quality monitoring.
So Beruff wanted these mangroves gone, and was denied permission to alter that part of the property on Long Bar Pointe.
A sewer pipe (that coincidentally has nothing to do with Beruff’s precious Aqua) just happened to break in the same mangroves he wanted gone.
For over a week, this pipe spewed millions of gallons of raw sewage a few hundred yards from the bay.
Mangroves were destroyed to tend to broken pipe.
Smells more than fishy to me, it smells exactly like millions of gallons of human sewage.
If his company did not secretly break this pipe on purpose, for direct access from LBP to the bay through the protected mangroves, I can’t help but think the large machinery that has been vibrating the previously undisturbed land at Long Bar Pointe for months, didn’t have something to do with the pipe breaking.
The last remaining natural shoreline on Sarasota Bay, and now our water quality, is being destroyed for greed. Aqua by the Bay should have never been approved, if my evil Carlos theory is incorrect, this is the first of many curses that will plague this rotten development. You reap what you sow.
And we’re letting NATURE clean it up?!? Maybe because it was leaking for over a full week, and “they” really have no idea where it all went. Does anyone want to go for a swim? Why don’t we all just start pooping directly into the water, then we don’t have to worry about sewer pipes at all. I’m disgusted.