Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Neighbors rally around Crescent Lake cleanup

By JON WILSON
Published March 11, 2007

Crescent Lake, a natural, spring-fed body of water set amid one of the city's more popular strolling parks, is getting a cleanup.

Thanks to a $6,700 grant from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, volunteers from the Crescent Lake neighborhood - and some adjacent neighborhoods - are removing invasive plants and trash from the 20-acre lake and its shoreline.

Florida native plants will go in, along with signs describing them. More descriptive signs will explain the drains that collect runoff from blocks away. Monitors will take regular water quality readings.

Improving the overall water quality is a major goal. Gary Crosby, one of the project coordinators, said water goes into the lake, then leaves it bound for Coffee Pot Bayou a half-mile east. Manatees sometimes congregate in the bayou, drinking the nonbrackish lake water as it pops out, he said.

"Actually, what we're doing is increasing the health of the manatees," Crosby said.

At the lake, the improved conditions will "attract a much more diverse habitat for wildlife," Crosby said. The lake is just south of 22nd Avenue N between Fifth and Seventh streets.

A series of work parties have been scheduled for volunteers.

About 60 people attended the first one on Feb. 24, Another took place Saturday. Another is scheduled March 31, 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.

A planting day April 21 starts at 8:30 a.m. and will last until the work is finished. A day to mark neighborhood storm drains will be scheduled later.

Residents have been enthused about the project, said Carolyn Fries, Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association president. "Typically in a neighborhood association, you get a small group of people, usually the board, doing all the work. This particular project has really brought out everyone," Fries said.

If you want to volunteer, call Lucy Trimarco at 727 821-2133, or e-mail lucyt@ij.net.

[Last modified March 10, 2007, 20:37:30]