Suncoast Waterkeeper teamed up with Sarasota Bay Watch this past weekend for the Annual Sister Keys Cleanup.
The event, held yearly since 2010, was a collaboration of the two non-profit organizations, the Town of Longboat Key Police and Public Works, Reef Innovations and the Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant.
Close to 50 volunteers worked for four hours on Sister Keys and around the mangrove fringes collecting a massive amount of trash and recyclable items, much of it from Hurricane Helene, which swept over the island with an estimated 4-foot storm surge.
This year’s harvest was the largest ever with over 400 pounds of insulation, numerous trash and recycling bins, lumber and a large picnic table. The total weight of debris came to over 2 tons.
The Sister Keys were originally slated for development in the early 60s as the Shangri Isle Club and were once again threatened in 1989 when they went on sale for $1 million. That spurred a group of citizens to form the Sister Keys Conservancy in an attempt to buy and preserve the islands as a nature preserve. The Town purchased the islands in 1994 with a stipulation that the keys would never be developed.
The islands underwent a million-dollar mitigation in 2007 that removed all invasive species, planted native flora and created a 2-acre wetland. Today, mature mangroves dominate the waterways and are rich with crustaceans, minnows, juvenile finfish and wading birds. Native species planted on uplands, first created from the dredging of the Intracoastal Waterway, have matured, making the islands one of the best examples of a thriving native marine environment in coastal Florida.
The cleanup is part of a continuing effort to clean the islands of trash and the resurgence of invasive species.
Kayakers and those without a boat were ferried to the island by the Suncoast Waterkeeper patrol boat and volunteer boaters David and Lori Price and Jim Costa.
Back at the Mar Vista, volunteers loaded the debris into a dump truck provided by the Town of Longboat Keys Public Works Department, which clears and marks the trails on Sister Keys in advance of the cleanup as part of their annual invasive plant sweep. The event was hosted by the Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant and volunteers were treated to a hosted box lunch. The restaurant, now under the ownership of Beachside Hospitality, agreed to keep hosting the event, continuing a multiyear tradition started by the Chiles Group.
The efforts of Sarasota Bay Watch and Suncoast Waterkeeper have been responsible for major initiatives that educate the public on the importance of a healthy bay and hold municipalities responsible to mandates established in the landmark 1982 Clean Water Act. SCWK also conducts bi-monthly water testing of inland coastal waters.
For more information on the groups’ missions and to become a member, visit their websites, www.sarasotabaywatch.org and www.suncoastwaterkeeper.org.
