Environmental Science: Upper Tampa Bay Park

Summary: 

Our trip began by meeting at the Upper Tampa Bay Park Nature Center located at 8001 Double Branch Rd., Tampa, FL 33615. The north end of the park had undergone a partial prescribed burn two days prior. Their goal was to clear out some of the undergrowth of saw palmetto so the natural wildflowers and grasses could regrow in the pine flatwoods.

The area we walked through was along the coastal boardwalk through the mangrove forests and up into the salt barren. The mangroves, which included the ovoid leafed white mangrove (a transitional plant), the taller, feather leafed black mangrove (salt tolerant), and the twisted root system of the red mangrove (will live directly in the salt water) lined the wooden boardwalk and hugged the coast line.

Environmental Science: Iraqi Marshlands

Iraqi Marshlands

                Between Amarah and Basrah along the South-Eastern border of Iraq and Iran, in what was once the heart of the Mesopotamian cultures of Uruk and Ur (Ancient Mesopotamia, 2006), a battle over water and a way a life gets a little reprieve. The once lush marsh lands called the Ahwar, “are unique, [being] as [they are] one of the world’s largest inland delta systems, [surviving] in an extremely hot and arid environment” (Unesco, 2016). Home to the Madaan, or Marsh Arabs, for thousands of years (Wikipedia, 2016) the Madaan formed homes within the marsh in reed houses and typically fell into one of three economic patterns: those that raised buffalo and sold the milk for drinking and to make cheese, those that spear fished, and those that farmed rice or harvested dates and other wild foods (Ali, 2003). Traditionally subsistence farmers, since the 1970s Saddam Hussein systematically moved to destroy their way of life.

Environmental Science: BLUE OCEAN Festival

              

               I attended the BLUE OCEAN Festival in St. Petersburg on Sunday, November 13. The presentations I saw was the release of the movies Before the Flood with Leonardo DiCaprio, The Forgotten Coast with Carlton Ward Jr., Tampa Bay Water Story with professors from USF, and a Q&A session with Carlton Ward Jr., Mallory Dimmit, Joe Guthrie, and Dr. Silvia Earle on how citizen science can make a difference.

Environmental Science: “Isolated” Wetlands

“Isolated” Wetlands

The Clean Water Act was initially enacted in 1972 as an effort to control water pollution. For the purpose of this article the CWA refers to waters that are navigable. These waters include territorial seas and ‘wetlands’ (Leibowitz & Nadeau, 2003). Section 404 of the CWA establishes a program to “protect the nation’s waters by requiring a permit for the discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States, including wetlands” (Leibowitz & Nadeau, 2003). The focus of the court case mentioned, Solid Waste Agency of Northern Cook County v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 531 U.S. 159 (2001) (SWANCC), was to determine if The Migratory Bird Rule addressed whether to include isolated waters as waters of the U.S. “The Court held that the CWA is not intended to protect isolated, intrastate, non-navigable waters based solely on their use by migratory birds, but did not decide whether Congress had the authority to regulate such waters” (Leibowitz & Nadeau, 2003).

Environmental Science: Brooker Creek Preserve Report

Narrative

Starting from the parking lot we began the trail in an upland environment. Trees observed were persimmon (most suffering from a disease which curls and browns the leaves), oak, dogfennel, and beautyberry bush. Muscadine grape vines were proliferate. Animals observed upon entering and leaving the park’s Pine Flatwoods included a large (~1’x8”) gopher tortoise and a red shoulder hawk. The Pine Flatwoods included various grasses and wildflowers, slash and longleaf pine and saw palmetto. Once we entered the trail and proceeded into the preserve, we very quickly transitioned to wetlands. The soil became saturated within a dozen feet of the trail entrance and dry upland plants such as saw palmetto, sumac, bidens flower, rag weed, wax myrtle, and wheely grass gave way to transition plants like cinnamon fern, sawgrass, button bush, and Red Maple.