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Letter to the editor

Keeping Lake Tarpon healthy is good for bay

By A TIMES EDITORIAL
Published October 21, 2007

One of Pinellas County's most unique and under-publicized natural resources is Lake Tarpon, a 2,500-acre freshwater lake in north county that is prized for its bass fishing. Generally uncrowded, the lake also is popular with boaters and water skiers who don't want to compete for space on the more heavily used saltwater bodies of the gulf, the Intracoastal Waterway and Tampa Bay.

Once known as Lake Butler, Lake Tarpon looked and seemed so robustly healthy for so many decades that it was easy to give it less attention than the more troubled waterways around Pinellas, such as Old Tampa Bay and Lake Seminole. However, the lake's water quality was declining slowly, damaged by pollutants that flowed into the lake from leaky septic systems as well as stormwater runoff from the increasingly developed acres around the lake.

A massive algae bloom on the lake in 1987 got everyone's attention and led to adoption of the Lake Tarpon Drainage Basin Management Plan in 1999 by the Pinellas County Commission. The thick document laid out a plan for the county, the water management district, the state and federal agencies to collaborate on projects for the next 10 years to improve and then protect the health of Lake Tarpon.

While much time has passed since the adoption of the plan, and the financial landscape for governments has changed considerably, projects to improve Lake Tarpon fortunately remain in the pipeline.

Design work will begin shortly on two large ponds that will filter stormwater from the lake's drainage basin before it flows into Lake Tarpon.

One pond will be constructed on the northeast side of the lake to filter runoff from a 570-acre area. The other pond will be on the west side and filter stormwater from a 212-acre drainage basin. The ponds are to be completed by 2009 and will cost just over a million dollars to design and build.

Pollutants and sediment in the stormwater will fall to the bottom of the ponds through a special system, and the county will remove the resulting muck from the ponds during regular maintenance.

Lake Tarpon isn't just a great recreational water body, it also is an important resource for the wildlife that populates North Pinellas. And because Lake Tarpon empties into Old Tampa Bay via the Lake Tarpon Outfall Canal, cleaner water in the lake also means a cleaner bay.

It is important to continue investing in the health of Lake Tarpon.

[Last modified October 20, 2007, 21:51:01]