The League’s Testimony on the Environmental Impacts of the Gas Plant Redevelopment Project

The Sustainability Committee submitted our position to St. Pete’s City Council for their 11/2/23 meeting. Here’s what we said:

We at the League of Women Voters of the St. Petersburg Area advocate for the protection of
our vulnerable estuary from sediments and pollutants during the Gas Plant Redevelopment
Process.
In 1990 Congress designated Tampa Bay as an estuary of national significance. Since then,
through comprehensive conservation and management, and with the combined effort of
citizens, elected officials, industries and regulators, water quality targets were met in 2006 and
the seagrass restoration goal of 38,000 acres was reached in 2014.
But recent results of habitat monitoring surveys in Tampa Bay show a 30% decline in seagrass
acreage since 2016, 12 % of that in the last 2 years. In the scientific publication Estuaries and
Coasts, Freeman et al (2019) describes the impacts of urbanization and development on
estuarine ecosystems and water quality, “Estuaries are particularly vulnerable because they
often have a large watershed much greater than their own area”; and as a result of increased
urbanization there have been many impacts to estuarine water quality including increased
sediment load, eutrophication, harmful algal blooms, and fecal bacteria “that can lead to the
loss of seagrasses”.
The area between Tropicana Field and Tampa Bay consists of impermeable surfaces, and
Booker Creek runs through the redevelopment site, carrying water, garbage, and pollutants into
Bayboro Harbor. With a project of this magnitude, how will the developers protect the estuary
from large amounts of sediment and pollutants washing into the bay during demolition and
Construction?
Currently the City of St. Petersburg is funding a project that will begin soon pending permit
approval, to fill a 31.6-acre dredge hole off of North Shore Park, which will be planted with
seagrass from a nearby donor area. In the past city leaders approved the installation of rain
gardens and bioswales with native plants on the new pier, reducing the amount of polluted
runoff into the bay. As city leaders, citizens, and conservation organizations collectively
continue to work hard in protecting our natural resources, we hope that City Council members
don’t take us backward by allowing the redevelopment process to harm our fragile ecosystem
we’ve been working so hard to protect.
The League believes that, given the magnitude of the environmental impacts due to this large
development, the City Council should appoint a committee to evaluate the environmental
protections proposed by the Rays.