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The island in Hillsborough Bay will be cleaned up, replanted and opened for tours through the Florida Aquarium.
By BABITA PERSAUD
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 23, 2001
TAMPA -- The island in Hillsborough Bay known as Fantasy Island is getting a new name, new look and new purpose.
This week, hundreds of volunteers are replanting the island with sabal palms, sea grapes and other native species. The hope: to turn this island -- dredged up in the 1980s -- into an educational park for public tours.
When finished at the end of the year, it will have paths, signs, boardwalks and an observation tower.
The public will be able to book tours through the Florida Aquarium and ferry a mile-and-a-half to the island via the Bay Spirit, a boat now used for dolphin-watching tours.
The island belongs to the Tampa Port Authority, which is spearheading the project along with the Florida Aquarium.
The first step was to clear away Brazilian pepper plants, which are not native and had covered 75 percent of the island.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Coast Guard airlifted a wood chipper, and a South Florida company started cutting the scrub and turning it into mulch, which will stay on the island to cover walkways.
About 25 percent of the island is mangroves, which will be left intact. Some 4,000 plants, including sea oats, cabbage palms and red cedars will be planted, said Julia Stack, senior horticulturist at the Florida Aquarium.
Within sight of the island is the Alafia Bird Sanctuary, an island not open to the public but managed by Audubon of Florida, which keeps track of about 20 varieties of birds, including ibis, spoonbills, brown pelicans and egrets.
It is unknown how the island became known as Fantasy Island. The Florida Aquarium is hoping to rename it, with suggestions possibility coming from local schoolchildren.
The project is being financed by local companies, including TECO.
About $50,000 is coming from the Gardinier Trust Fund, which was the outcome of a settlement after a 1988 chemical spill in Hillsborough Bay.
The spill resulted in a fish kill, millions of dollars in fines and a lot of bad publicity for Gardinier Inc., a fertilizer manufacturer with phosphate mining operations near the bay.