Extensive algal growth is a key sign that your stormwater ponds are not healthy. You have excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) in the water that sustains ever-expanding algae. Unsightly algal blooms reduce the efficiency of your ponds to filter stormwater as it flows downstream to the Bay and the Gulf providing a food source for [...]
Some of your ponds may even show signs of costly erosion as shown above. Bank erosion will fill up your pond with soil limiting its capacity to hold stormwater requiring costly bank remediation or even dredging. If your community is facing these problems with your ponds, you should contact our Healthy Pond Collaborative (HPC) for [...]
As shown above, a new Microforest was completed on September 13th in the Herons Nest community in Lakewood Ranch. This is the seventh Microforest that has been installed by the Suncoast Urban Reforesters (SURF), a partnership created in October 2020 with the Florida Veterans For Common Sense Fund, Inc, the Sarasota Bay Rotary Club and [...]
The Science & Technology Society hosted a panel discussion with red tide experts on the evening of April 17th at the Planetarium in the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature in Bradenton. The panel discussed the many facets of red tide from what causes it, concerns about its impacts on the environment, our economy and [...]
START, as a partner in the Suncoast Urban ReForesters (SURF) along with the Florida Veterans for Common Sense and Sarasota Bay Rotary Club, presided over the successful installation of our fifth Microforest at the Heritage Harbour Community in Manatee County on January 18th. SURF is dedicated to planting Microforests throughout the Suncoast to improve coastal [...]
Thanks to a very successful pilot pond program funded by a grant from Ed Chiles and Elizabeth Moore that helped enhance over a half mile of pond shoreline in Manatee County communities last year, START has been awarded a three-year $100,000 grant from Charles & Margery Barancik Foundation to create the Healthy Pond Collaborative Manatee. [...]
START is helping to coordinate the planting of a 1.5-acre microforest at Colony Cove, a community of manufactured homes on the north shore of the Manatee River, just across from the Ellenton Outlet Mall. This will be the third microforest planted by Suncoast Urban Reforesters (SURF), which is a consortium that includes Florida Veterans for [...]
