{"id":148945,"date":"2026-02-09T15:36:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:36:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/148945\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T15:36:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T15:36:51","slug":"proposed-cruise-port-could-risk-lower-bay-environment-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/148945\/","title":{"rendered":"Proposed cruise port could risk lower bay environment, economy"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 21-foot Carolina skiff moves through shallow, clear water in lower Tampa Bay. There isn\u2019t a cloud in the sky.<\/p>\n

The boat belongs to Reed Smith, owner of Calusa Oyster Company.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody who\u2019s grown up here loves a real briny oyster, and then because of the nature of the bay, we have a sweet finish,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

His floating oyster farm, comprised of cages attached to buoys, has been bombarded with setbacks since the start four years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were really, really impacted \u2026 because of the storms,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Within a week of dropping their first oyster seedlings, Hurricane Ian blew through. Then came Hurricanes Nicole, Idalia, Debby, Helene and Milton.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t had a normal, straightforward year of growing. This is our first one,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s been a successful year at that \u2014 about half a million oysters will sell to a dozen local restaurants this harvest. \u201cWe think everything\u2019s going well, and then we have the whole port issue,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve, the area\u2019s record-high seagrass coverage helps to offset climate-warming emissions, while the mangroves protect lands from flooding.<\/p>\n

Opposition grows, including harassment<\/p>\n

SSA Marine, a cruise port developer, announced its vision<\/a> for a facility that can hold several larger ships near the south end of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Manatee County.<\/p>\n

The Knott-Cowen tract, as it\u2019s called, is over 300 acres of coastal land right beside the ecologically sensitive Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve where people fish and grow oysters and clams.<\/p>\n

The local community is reacting to SSA Marine\u2019s proposal in partnership with landowner Slip Knott LLC.<\/p>\n

There are multiple petitions against it. Plus, Manatee County said in an email, its employees and their children are being harassed over the inquiry.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo county employee should be harassed for performing their professional duties. No child should ever be targeted because of where their parent works. These actions must stop,\u201d said a county spokesperson.<\/p>\n

The port proposal website says this could take three to five years to build, including dredging out the sea floor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s just going to have a disastrous effect out here,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Construction would impact the water quality, diminishing the health of his farm and that of his nearby seedling supplier, Bay Shellfish Co.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one of Florida\u2019s largest bivalve hatcheries and it\u2019s located in Terra Ceia.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would devastate most of the supply to the Gulf Coast,\u201d he said, from Pensacola down to Tampa Bay and beyond.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Pelicans roost on top of floating black buoys that hold mesh bags full of growing oysters.<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s rising aquaculture economy<\/p>\n

Florida\u2019s shellfish aquaculture sector supports $29.4 billion in sales revenue and 434 jobs throughout the state\u2019s economy, according to the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Within recent years, Florida aquaculture has been ranking within the top 10 for total domestic production.<\/p>\n

Southwest Florida is an important producer of farmed bivalves, like the hard clams, oysters, bay scallops and sunray venus clams harvested in Manatee County.<\/p>\n

Calusa Oyster Company\u2019s farm isn\u2019t too far from SeaPort Manatee, which became operational in 1970. But Smith says that facility, used for importing and exporting cargo, isn\u2019t really busy.<\/p>\n

And even if it was, he says, the water near that existing port flows away from his farm \u2014 unlike the new proposed port, which would flow polluted water from large cruise ships toward his oyster cages.<\/p>\n

Smith\u2019s boat passes by a couple fisherman and clam farms before shallow water brings the vessel to a halt.<\/p>\n

In the distance, a mile and a half away is the proposed port location.<\/p>\n

\u201cThink how shallow it is here \u2026 so you\u2019re starting basically from this depth, which right now it\u2019s probably 18 inches to get something deep enough to for a cruise ship,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

From that spot, you can see a silhouette of dense, bushy mangroves tailing the end of the Skyway.<\/p>\n

The port would be on the other side of those trees facing the Gulf.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Reed Smith shows off one of his oysters, one of hundreds of thousands encased in floating mesh bags to keep them safe and fed while they grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnspoiled and beautiful\u201d<\/p>\n

A few days before this voyage, Maya Burke of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program stood in that exact location.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re sort of sandwiched on one side by the Sunshine Skyway, but then behind me, it\u2019s really sort of the gateway to the Gulf of Mexico,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Burke said this is one of the last sections of undeveloped shoreline in the Tampa Bay region.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s quite unspoiled and beautiful,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Burke recounts how Tampa Bay only recovered in recent years from seagrass losses due to development and wastewater practices.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor every part of the bay that we have a lot of worries about, it\u2019s hard for me to think about adding this part of lower Tampa Bay into that mix because it\u2019s been sort of our rock solid performer,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n

This area\u2019s record-high seagrass coverage helps to offset climate-warming emissions, while the mangroves offer flood protection.<\/p>\n

\u201cHabitats like these store 10 times as much carbon as terrestrial habitats, and so it makes it really important to protect these things, so that we don\u2019t lose what\u2019s already there, and so that those things don\u2019t become emissions as well,\u201d Burke said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to go out in the boat with your family and have a killer day, this is going to deliver every time. And to take that away from folks like that is a sacrifice that we need to think about and value.\u201d<\/p>\n

Burke said we need to trust the regulatory programs in place for a proposal like this.<\/p>\n

Manatee County said in an email there would need to be a technical review, code compliance, and public hearings before county commissioners would ultimately decide \u2013 not to mention state permitting.<\/p>\n

But from the looks of it, none of that has happened yet.<\/p>\n

Back on Reed Smith\u2019s boat, he pulls some oysters fresh out of the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest thing is, when you get something that\u2019s the size of your fingernail, and you put in a bag, you just hope,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd all the sudden, we\u2019re pulling stuff out today that\u2019s like perfect and that people have in the restaurant \u2026 and they\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my God, I\u2019ve had those. I love those. They\u2019re so good.\u2019 There\u2019s a sense of pride.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith thinks by the next harvest he\u2019ll have 750,000 Calusa oysters and sell to triple the number of local restaurants.<\/p>\n

Jessica Meszaros is a reporter for WUSF, the NPR station for the greater Tampa Bay area.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 21-foot Carolina skiff moves through shallow, clear water in lower Tampa Bay. There isn\u2019t a cloud in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-148945","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-petersburg","8":"tag-st-pete","9":"tag-st-pete-headlines","10":"tag-st-pete-news","11":"tag-st-petersburg","12":"tag-st-petersburg-headlines","13":"tag-st-petersburg-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}