CORTEZ – Suncoast Waterkeeper Executive Director Abbey Tyrna has a plain way of describing what is killing mangroves along the Suncoast.
Tyrna spoke Saturday morning, Oct. 10, at the Cortez Cultural Center, where the Cortez Village Historical Society hosted its Cortez Coffee gathering that was open to the public.
“Just like a heart in the body, when it has a clogged artery, you can have a heart attack,” Tyrna said. “This is a mangrove system that has a clogged hydrologic flow. Water’s not getting in, and if it is getting in, it’s not getting out.”
Tyrna said the change in water flow kills trees in the interior of the mangrove forest.
Tyrna said Suncoast Waterkeeper takes water samples from Terra Ceia Bay south to Lemon Bay. Last year the organization collected 932 samples. She said that data has supported legal action against industrial facilities, a settlement of its lawsuit against the city of Bradenton over wastewater discharges into the Manatee River, and the state’s decision to list Palma Sola Bay as impaired for bacteria, which means the bay does not meet state water quality standards.
She said one of the dying mangrove forests is on Sister Keys, which consist of four uninhabited islands in Sarasota Bay, just east of Longboat Key. She said the die-off there seems to be spreading exponentially. Suncoast Waterkeeper is working with the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program, Oyster River Ecology and the town of Longboat Key on a fix, which usually means digging a ditch placed to limit harm to the surrounding area.
The causes differ from site to site. Tyrna said Ungarelli Preserve, a Manatee County park on Palma Sola Boulevard in Bradenton, is suffering from the opposite problem: a stormwater pipe that delivers too much water and never lets the forest dry down. Sea level rise adds to the water-related stress.
“Mangroves are the most critically endangered ecosystems on the planet, and what we have left is all that we have,” she said.
Tyrna told the audience that 80% of the Sarasota Bay coastline is no longer mangrove. She said Suncoast Waterkeeper began monitoring mangroves in Manatee County in 2024 because no one had been doing it. She expects to publish that data in the next couple of months.
Allen Garner shared some good news from the FISH Preserve, the 98-acre stretch of undeveloped Sarasota Bay shoreline along the east side of Cortez. The Florida Institute for Saltwater Heritage (FISH) was formed in 1991 to protect the village’s working waterfront from development. Funds raised during FISH’s annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival helped purchase and preserve the undeveloped land.
Garner, a retired landscape architect and longtime FISH member, was hired by the board in 2024 as project manager for trails, bridges and other public-access improvements. A $165,000 grant from the Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation of Sarasota is paying for the work.
Garner grew up in the Cortez fishing business, and he ran the Star Fish Company until he sold it to Karen Bell in the 1990s.
Tyrna also covered other topics. She said Suncoast Waterkeeper has collected 83 drinking water samples to test for PFAS chemicals. Often called “forever chemicals” because they do not break down, PFAS is found in natural waters, drinking water and in many household products. Tyrna wants to collect more samples from residents who get their drinking water from the city of Bradenton or Manatee County. Participants collect water samples using a free test kit that is then mailed to a lab.
Tyrna said local well water samples showed no detectable PFAS. She also warned that a proposed federal rollback of Clean Water Act protections could leave about 75% of the region’s remaining wetlands unprotected.
Tyrna also mentioned the 2021 lawsuit Suncoast Waterkeeper and three other organizations filed against the city of Bradenton because of the city’s repeated wastewater discharges into the Manatee River. The settlement agreement reached in 2022 requires the city to spend at least $220,000 on water quality enhancement projects, which include the Oyster River Ecology organization’s oyster bed restoration activities in the Manatee River. Tyrna said none of the settlement money goes to Suncoast Waterkeeper, and the U.S. Department of Justice oversees the fund transfers.
Tyrna offered to return to Cortez to train residents in Voices for Water, a Suncoast Waterkeeper program that prepares residents for one-on-one meetings with elected officials about water issues. The historical society said it will announce next steps in its newsletter.
The Cortez Cultural Center is a white, 1940s cottage with blue shutters at 11655 Cortez Road W. It was moved to Cortez from Bradenton Beach in 2011, after the city had planned to tear it down. The society, which marked its 40th year in 2024, uses it as its home and as a history museum.
During Cortez Coffee, the hosts set out coffee, tea and refreshments, urged guests to take home bananas grown on the grounds and offered golf cart rides to the restrooms.
