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Rally 'round the lake

Volunteers heed the call to save Crescent Lake. They are cleaning up litter, restoring it to health and vowing to keep it that way.

By RITA FARLOW
Published July 11, 2007

From left, Sierra Club member Lucy Peak, Lakewood High teacher Jennifer Pacowta, wetlands biologist Kerry Iliff and Lakewood sophomore Katie Bower take part in the first planting around the lake in April.
	[Martha Rial | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Courtesy of Gary Crosby] A common moorhen has laid eggs in bulrush planted by volunteers at the south end of Crescent Lake. More plants are on the way September 15.

ST. PETERSBURG - Having lived at the south end of Crescent Lake for nearly a decade, Tracey Herman was disheartened by what she saw.

"There was a lot of garbage, a lot of litter just choking the banks, and it was hard to get to. It just looked dead," she said.

She yearned to do something about it.

Enter Gary Crosby and Lucy Trimarco.

Crosby, a former president of the Crescent Lake Neighborhood Association, and Trimarco were heading up a restoration project at the lake and needed help. Herman read about their efforts in the Banyan Banter, the association's newsletter.

Herman adopted the south side. She patrols for litter and, with Trimarco, takes monthly water samples that are sent for analysis to a civilian lake monitoring program called Florida LAKEWATCH.

Their efforts are a small facet of a large volunteer effort under way to improve the aesthetics and restore the natural habitat of one of St. Petersburg's most popular parks.

Fueled by a $6,600 grant from the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, a bevy of partnerships and a heaping dose of donated labor, the neighborhood association has amassed a group dedicated to the long-term rehabilitation of the lake.

"It really is a great example of what a group of neighbors can do to rally around a really good cause. It's good for the environment, the wildlife, and adds to the enjoyment of people who are visiting the park in general," said Mike Flanagan, editor of the Banyan Banter.

* * *

The health of this 21-acre lake in the heart of St. Petersburg has far-reaching effects, Crosby said. A stormwater retention pond for the city, water flows in through 12 culverts, often carrying trash. Water flows out of the lake at the north end into Coffee Pot Bayou and finally to Tampa Bay.

To get the project started, volunteers converged on the park for four days this spring. In their first two cleanups, the group pulled more than 30 cubic yards of trash from the lake. They slogged along the shoreline to pick out plastic, glass and paper, which makes up the vast majority of the refuse, Crosby said.

Volunteers in waist waders and boats helped pull larger debris from the lake's interior, including several engine crankshafts, bicycles, auto parts and street signs. James Kostka brought more than two dozen of his students from the Academy for Environmental Technology and Marine Science at Lakewood High School. "The kids had a great time. They were involved from the ground level up," he said.

As part of an ongoing project, the students are taking water samples to compare to those sent to Florida LAKEWATCH. Kostka said the lake is a perfect outdoor classroom.

The students are also part of a growing chain of people who are learning about the importance of restoring and maintaining diverse natural habitats, said Jim Bays, an environmental biologist from Crescent Heights, who has volunteered his time for the project.

"A little bit of awareness goes a long way toward building support up for projects like these," Bays said.

* * *

The group has taken what's called an "adaptive management strategy" to restoring the lake, a practice common in conservation projects. Small changes are introduced and then monitored for effect. This allows the plan to evolve based on the success or failure of different aspects.

With help from Jim Bays, another local biologist, Kerry Iliff, the Florida Native Plant Society and the Pinellas County Extension Service, the group invested in plants deemed most suited to the natural lake environment, like pickerelweed, bulrush and water lilies.

Wire cages were installed to allow the new plants to get established without the stresses of foraging fish or ducks parading shore to shore for bread crumbs. They've learned that the cages aren't as necessary on the south end, where fewer ducks congregate, Bays said.

The group is still grappling with invasive species, like a recent hydrilla bloom that formed a mat on some parts of the lake's surface. To protect the new native plantings, the city workers complied when organizers requested they suspend the spraying of herbicides. Bays said spraying may be necessary in the future, but one hope is that founder colonies they've planted will spread and out-compete the weeds.

"How can you cover a whole lake for $6,600? You let the plants do the work and let the lake do the work," Bays said.

* * *

The group has gone through about half of the grant money, but members still have a lot of work to do, Crosby said. A second planting will be in September, and the water quality monitoring will continue.

A second piece to the grant is education, which organizers think is critical to the success of the project. Working with the city's stormwater and engineering departments, the group hopes to mark drains to inform the public about how litter and lawn fertilizers from blocks away make it into the lake.

"We want to get people to be aware that whatever goes into the drain here goes to Crescent Lake, then to Coffee Pot Bayou, then out to Tampa Bay," Crosby said.

As a separate but complementary project, Crosby said the association is hoping to build a sidewalk that would lead to an observation deck on the north side, by the playground, and add native plants along the shore.

By the end of the project, volunteers will have donated more than 950 hours to the restoration. "It is a grass-roots effort. People love this lake," Bays said.

Parks director Cliff Footlick credited the volunteers: "They've really come to the plate fully educated and well informed. They've done almost all of it themselves."

What started as a vision to improve the aesthetics of the lake has turned into full-scale rehab, Crosby said. Besides restoring the habitat for wildlife, the group hopes to improve the water quality of the lake and ultimately Tampa Bay.

"The Tampa Bay Estuary Program has targeted stormwater runoff as a significant pollutant in Tampa Bay. It's the one thing that can be reduced by citizen awareness and projects like these," Crosby said.

Information from Times files was used in this report.

Fast Facts:

Crescent Lake Park

The land that St. Petersburg developer C. Perry Snell sold to the city in 1919 for $30,000 opened as a public park in 1927. The 56-acre park is between 12th and 22nd avenues N and Fifth Street N and Crescent Lake Drive. It's anchored by the 21-acre freshwater lake that doubles as a stormwater retention pond. Local landmarks include a large banyan tree on the lake's east side and a water tower with a mural painted by local artist Tom Stovall. The Huggins-Stengel Complex, built in 1925 as a training camp for the New York Yankees, sits at the park's southeast corner.

To help

A second shoreline planting will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 15 at the north end of the lake. To volunteer, call project coordinator Lucy Trimarco at 821-2133 or e-mail her at lucyt@ij.net.

[Last modified July 11, 2007, 08:09:55]