New federal legislation recognizes Pensacola and Perdido Bays as “Estuaries of National Significance.” The measure, passed Monday by the U.S. House of Representatives, will prioritize government funding for projects aimed at keeping the bays healthy.
The nation designation is the culmination of six years of work, according to Matt Posner, executive director of the Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary Program (PPBEP).
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“It's certainly an exciting time here at the Estuary Program,” said Posner. “When the estuary program was first established back in 2018, it has long been the goal to receive Congressional authorization to enroll in EPA's National Estuary Program and recognize Pensacola and Perdido Bays — as estuaries of national significance.”
The Pensacola and Perdido Bay Estuary Program will be the first to be added to the National Estuary Program in over 30 years. Posner called it a transformational opportunity for environmental management for the area.
“The great thing about the designation is it ensures that the region, the Pensacola and Perdido Bay watersheds, are really prioritized for future funding opportunities at the federal and state level,” Posner stated.
He says it's critical for the work that the Estuary Program does, but also extends to the work of its nearly 60 partner organizations, which include local, state and federal agencies non-governmental organizations (NGOs), academic institutions, and the private sector.
“So this designation ensures that all of these key water quality priorities, habitat restoration, community resilience, will have the support that we need in the years ahead.”
Legislation creating the Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary of National Significance Act was originally introduced in January of 2023 by Florida’s U.S. Senators Marco Rubio and Rick Scott. Now after endorsement by the House nearly two years later, the measure is on its way to the White House to be signed into law. Posner expects the outgoing Biden administration to give its stamp of approval.
“We have all expectations that President Biden will sign this bill,” Posner declared, acknowledging that Biden’s term ends in a matter of weeks. “The fact that it passed unanimously in the Senate back in March and that it's received bipartisan support in the House this week. There's really not a question that this will be signed, into law by President Biden, and then we will quickly work, with the incoming EPA administration to make sure that we have everything in place to be able to fully execute as a national estuary program.”
The Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary Program was established in 2018, transitioning from the Bay Area Resource Council (BARC), which was formed in the 1980s through inter-local agreements between governmental agencies in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties. The impetus for the change was the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010 and RESTORE Act funding that followed.
“Community leaders at the time came together and really understood that what this region needed was an organization that was charged with the long-term restoration, monitoring, and stewardship of these resources that stretch beyond jurisdictional boundaries,” Posner said.
In the last six years, the estuary program and its partners have been able to bring in over $30 million to implement priority restoration, resilience, and conservation projects in the Pensacola and Perdido Bay watersheds (drainage basins).
Many of the projects stem from the estuary program’s first Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan released in 2022. Among the bigger projects currently underway is the Pensacola Bay Oyster Restoration Initiative.
"That is a goal to restore over 1,500 football fields worth of oyster habitat in the next ten years,” he said. “Not everybody knows this, but East Bay Oysters - part of the greater Pensacola Bay system - once supported 10% of the oyster harvest in the state of Florida. So we were right behind Apalachicola Bay that we often hear about.”
A project to complete the design for the restoration of Carpenter’s Creek, between I-110 and 12th Avenue in Pensacola, will commence in 2025. Also set for next year is a project to track and identify sources of bacterial pollution in area surface waters.
“We'll use that information to then prioritize future wastewater and stormwater improvement projects in this region, which will hopefully be funded in part by some of the funding that's made available through the new national designation,” said Posner.
The goal is to improve the health of the bays, and according to the latest (2023) State of the Bays report, it’s a bit of a mixed bag, depending on which indicator is being reviewed. Indicators include habitats, water quality, bacteria, and wildlife.
“So we've actually seen some slight improvements in terms of seagrass coverage for both of these systems over the last five to ten years,” Posner stated. “But if we were to look at oyster habitat, we have identified that as a point of critical concern because we've lost over 85 to 90% of that historic oyster habitat that we once had in the Pensacola Bay system.”
Getting the designation of “national significance” for the Pensacola and Perdido Bays Estuary Program, said Posner, is important to support the long-term sustainability of the region’s natural resources and its economy, too.
“Water quality has a tremendous impact on property values,” he explained. “And the health of the region, of the fisheries as a whole, is a driver to people looking to not only visit this region but to relocate, whether they're looking for a new job or whether a business is looking to relocate here.”
The next State of the Bays report, released by PPBEP every two years, will be available in the spring of 2025.
