Suncoast Waterkeeper teamed up with Sarasota Bay Watch this past weekend when they conducted the 2022 Annual Sister Keys Cleanup.
The event was a collaboration with the Town of Longboat Key and the Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant. Close to 40 volunteers worked for four hours on the island and around the mangrove fringes collecting trash and recyclable items.
The Sister Keys were originally slated for development in the early ’60s as the Shangri Isle Club and were once again threatened in 1989 when they went on sale for $1 million. That spurred a group of citizens to form the Sister Keys Conservancy in an attempt to buy and preserve the islands as a nature preserve. The Town purchased the islands in 1994 with a stipulation that the keys would never be developed.
The islands underwent a million-dollar mitigation in 2007 that removed all invasive species, planted native flora and created a 2-acre wetland. Today mature mangroves dominate the waterways and are rich with crustaceans, minnows, juvenile finfish and wading birds. Native species planted on uplands created from the dredging of the Intracoastal Waterway in the late 1800s have matured, making the islands one of the best examples of a thriving native marine environment in coastal Florida. The cleanup is part of a continuing two-prong ongoing effort to clean the islands of trash and the resurgence of invasive species.
The Longboat Key Marine division patrolled the Intracoastal Waterway to slow boaters as volunteers embarked for the island and brought bags of trash and recycling back to the edges of the ICW. Kayakers and those without a boat were ferried to the island by volunteer boaters.
Back at the Longboat Key Town Boat Ramp after the event, volunteers loaded the debris into a truck provided by the Town of Longboat Key Public Works. All plastics and cans were collected in separate green bags provided by SBW and recycled. The volunteers were treated to lunch by the Mar Vista Dockside Restaurant, a longtime supporter of the event.
The Sister Keys Cleanup is just one of many projects that SBW is involved in. In 2021, SBW planted clams in the bay in an ongoing restoration effort. Other cleanups are conducted at various locations throughout the bay, as well as an annual monofilament cleanup and much more.
Suncoast Waterkeeper is a Sarasota-based advocacy non-profit committed to protecting and restoring the Florida Suncoast’s waterways through enforcement, field work, advocacy and environmental education for the benefit of the communities that rely upon these precious coastal resources. Their efforts have been responsible for major initiatives that hold municipalities responsible to mandates established in the landmark 1982 Clean Water Act. SCWK also conducts bi-monthly water testing of inland coastal waters.
For more information on the groups’ missions and to become a member, visit their websites, Sarasota Bay Watch and Suncoast Waterkeeper www.sarasotabaywatch.org and www.suncoastwaterkeeper.org.
