Northoftampa: Group tours gem to become park

Group tours gem to become park

By ED QUIOCO

OLDSMAR -- City Council member Brian Michaels stood on the edge of the narrow dirt trail, which brushed against a waterway that feeds into the top of Old Tampa Bay, and gazed at the Courtney Campbell Parkway on the horizon.

Closer to him were a pair of birds wading in the relatively still waterway blanketed by mangroves and trees on both sides.

"Wow. Amazing. Absolutely amazing," Michaels said. "This is probably one of the only undisturbed pieces of property in Pinellas that has water access. It's Oldsmar's hidden jewel. Actually, it's Pinellas County's hidden jewel."

Earlier this month Michaels, other Oldsmar city council members and a handful of residents and city officials toured some of the sandy trails that will be part of the Mobbly Bayou Wilderness Preserve. The city is planning how to develop the lush ecosystem into a 202-acre preserve.

In March, the city used a $1.4-million state grant to purchase 77 acres that will be combined with 125 acres of adjacent county-owned land to make the preserve. Both tracts are on the southeast portion of the city.

"The plan is to leave it pretty much as it is . . . and not get into disturbing any of the wildlife," said Lynn Rives, the city's Parks and Recreation director. "As we came into the trail, you saw some pretty nice views."

The trek, which lasted about an hour and 30 minutes, took the group through wetlands and uplands on the east and west sides of the property. Some parts of the winding trails were in a tidal area and would be under water during high tide, Rives said.

"It is absolutely gorgeous," said Pat Lamphear, a member of the city's Parks and Recreation advisory board. "Between big cities like Tampa, it's nice to be able to get somewhere and not hear anything, just the birds and the fish jumping."

The plan calls for building an environmental education center, hiking trails, picnic shelters and a canoe launch. The city also plans to use abandoned concrete water tanks on the property as observation towers.

"This is a way to utilize what is already here, rather than disturbing the preserve land," Rives said.

Rives said a local artist could be selected to paint a native Florida scene on the old concrete tanks, which had been covered by trees and overgrowth for years.

City workers have begun clearing the land that will be the site of the nature center, restrooms and picnic areas. The city also has applied for three state grants totaling about $615,000 to purchase more property and help build the canoe launch, trails and a gravel access road behind the city's wastewater treatment plant on Lafayette Boulevard.

City officials hope to use a $515,000 state grant to help purchase about 14 acres on the southern end of Shore Drive, which would be added to the preserve.

The proposed addition, which now is private property, also would add to the preserve about 1,600 feet of shoreline on Old Tampa Bay and would give the city its first beach area. The plan includes realigning Shore Drive to increase the shoreline area.

Richard Schauseil, an Oldsmar resident who went on the tour, worried that the preserve will attract large numbers of people, which could spoil the nature and solitude that it promotes.

"You can be in the middle of these waterways, and you don't feel that you are in the middle of a metropolitan area," he said. "It's like you are in the middle of the Everglades."