Teens do the muddy work to bring back marsh life

Palm Harbor University High students help restore a tidal creek area by planting salt marsh grass.

By THERESA BLACKWELL

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 23, 2000

PALM HARBOR -- Palm Harbor University High School students of the environment were up to their ankles -- in some cases, even their knees -- in muck late last week.

But they didn't mind. The students, who are members of the school's marine biology club or students in Corine Coviello's environmental studies classes, were planting salt marsh grass on Cooper's Point in Old Tampa Bay.

While they were getting plenty muddy, they also were learning, having fun and doing something good for the environment.

The students grew and then planted smooth cord grass, a saltwater plant that grows at the water's edge in marshes. The grass provides marine habitat, filters pollutants from the water and stabilizes the shoreline.

"The great thing is that these Palm Harbor students have been involved in the process all along," said Sari Schlossberg, an environmental scientist with Tampa BayWatch.

Schlossberg leads the organization's coastal wetlands nursery program, which organizes middle and high school student volunteers to help replant shoreline vegetation. Six schools in Pinellas County and five in Hillsborough County participate.

Students at Palm Harbor University High built a pond and set up a salt marsh grass nursery at the school in January 1999. In early spring last year, they dug up 5,000 smooth cord grass plants in Manatee County and transplanted them into their nursery.

With the guidance of Coviello and Tampa BayWatch, students cared for the plants and watched as each plant grew into a cluster of six to 10 plants called a plug.

Thursday, the students bagged up 2,500 plugs from their nursery and prepared them for planting along a tidal creek on Cooper's Point, a peninsula on the north side of the Courtney Campbell Parkway in Clearwater. The remaining plugs were separated into individual plants and replanted in the school's nursery to multiply.

Friday, 19 students gathered along the 2,000-foot-long creek on Cooper's Point. The city of Clearwater, Pinellas County, the Southwest Florida Water Management District and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection have been restoring the creek area. They removed exotic Brazilian pepper plants that had taken over and planted some marsh grass at higher elevations.

The students were there to fill in with plants at the shoreline. They worked in teams of three, with one digging a hole, one dropping a plant in and one patting mud around the plant.

It was low tide and students sank ankle and sometimes knee deep in the mud at the edge of the water. The mud crept up their clothes to their faces.

"This is actually a cleaner spot!" student Leif Burhans, 18, said as he waded hip deep in murky water between two banks of mud.

The clear skies and hot sun had them reaching for cups of water with crusted hands.

Student Ellen Trimarco, 18, rested in the shade of the truck after becoming flushed in the heat. She tried to wipe some mud off her face with a towel, but her hands got more mud back on her face than they were taking off.

"I don't mind it. I like getting muddy," she said. "It's really nice that the school organizes the marine biology club. Because if we work together, we can get a lot more done. We can really make a difference."

Students squealed as they slipped in the mud and watched the wildlife that was brave enough to stay, encountering fiddler and horseshoe crabs, herons and egrets.

After a couple of hours, bags of plants were emptied. One student quietly filled her bag with trash that had been dumped along a nearby road.

"I found shoes!" said Kim Walker, 17. "It's unbelievable what people throw out."

Walker is in the ecology class taught by Coviello. "The fun thing about this is that I'm actually learning," Walker said. "She may think I'm not learning because I look like I'm not paying attention, but really I am."

Carl Giovenco, an environmental scientist with the Southwest Florida Water Management District working at Cooper's Point, enjoys teaching the students.

"They'll take this with them wherever they go," he said. "I encourage them to come back and see how it looks later. In two years, this will be a solid mat of grass."

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