Restoration Science Successes and Challenges for Southwest Florida: Charlotte Harbor
Stephen A. Bortone, Marine Laboratory, Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Sanibel, FL
The Charlotte Harbor restoration effort has different program plans for each of the major basins within its watershed. Each of these plans, however, is integrated into a total program of restoring habitat, flowways, and maintaining ecosystem integrity.
In the Caloosahatchee Basin, oxbows in the river will be monitored to assess the effect of restoration on water quality and biodiversity. The restoration plan calls for removing exotics plants from spoil islands created as part of dredge and fill activities. Additional activities call for removal of the spoil piles themselves to restore the hydrological profiles to pre-dredging conditions.
The Charlotte Harbor Basin restoration plan includes exotic plant (chiefly Brazilian pepper) removal from nearshore buffer areas surrounding the bay as well as establishing a Charlotte Harbor State Buffer Preserve that includes the acquisition and management of over 38,000 acres. Broader restoration plans for the harbor area call for expanding and replacing septic systems in Charlotte County and removal of mosquito ditches whenever possible. Site-specific projects in the Charlotte Harbor Basin call for restoring Alligator Creek and Coral Creek. The upper portion of the Charlotte Harbor system (i.e., Lemmon Bay) will soon have a long-term, large-scale plan developed for its restoration.
In the Estero Bay Basin an extensive effort is planned to acquire and restore lands that have been altered as a result of large-scale agricultural activities. Proximate to this area is the Southwest Florida Regional Airport (RSW). Construction is currently underway to expand the airport and restoration plans call for an expansion of the flowway involving removal of exotic vegetation and maintenance of hydrological connections through ditch removal. Additional surface water drainage connections are planned for several areas surrounding the airport and FGCU-associated properties. The proximity of the airport to valuable wood stork habitat makes this activity paramount. Site-specific activities involve the Benson Property, Tesone Property, and Bluejack Oak Parcel. Most restoration activities in the Estero Bay Basin are associated with opening, creating, or maintaining flow ways for surface and ground water. Areas near Bunche Beach, Corkscrew Swamp, Cow Slough, Halfway Creek, Alico Road, Florida Rock Industries, Hendry Creek, Imperial River, Lakes Park, Leitner Creek, Bonita Springs, Spring Creek, and Six-Mile Cypress, and Osprey Village are portions of a larger plan to increase flowways while reducing local, short-term flooding in the Estero Basin. Concomitant with this activity is a project on Lover’s Key State Recreational Area to widen the hydrologic flowway from Estero Bay to the Gulf.
Across the entire system plans are being prepared to assess and restore various VEC (Valued Ecosystem Component) species such as oyster beds, submerged aquatic vegetation, and mangroves.
Dominating the coastal zone will be the reconstruction of the Sanibel Causeway. Associated with this project are actions that will assure broader hydrologic flowways under the causeway that will reduce tidal flow and river discharge restrictions.
Overall, the Charlotte Harbor restoration plan is in its infancy. It is significant to note that the plan is directed to the multiple basins within the system. More importantly, the planned activities are coordinated at large and small scales in both time and space to achieve the desired end result of ecosystem restoration for a variety of interest groups that most importantly includes the natural environment.
Bortone, S.A. Marine Laboratory, Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, Sanibel, FL 33957, Phone: 239-395-3115, Fax: 239-395-4116,