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Tampa Bay program: wet 2024, storm runoff and river flows drove algae spikes despite long-term nitrogen gains
Summary
The Tampa Bay Estuary Program reported that 2024’s heavy rainfall and multiple hurricanes produced elevated algae and sanitary sewer overflows that worsened water-quality conditions in parts of the bay, even as long-term nitrogen loads have fallen since the 1970s.
Maya Burke, assistant director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, told the Hillsborough County City-County Planning Commission on March 10 that 2024 was one of the wettest years on record and that the extreme storms drove unusually large stormwater and river discharges into Tampa Bay.
Burke said the region has made substantial long-term progress cutting nitrogen inputs — from more than 9,000 tons in the 1970s–80s to roughly 3,000 tons today — largely by upgrading wastewater treatment, but that the top remaining sources are stormwater runoff and atmospheric deposition from mobile sources and power generation. "2024 is actually one of the wettest years on record," Burke said, and that rainfall pattern, plus several tropical storms and hurricanes, shifted the bay’s conditions.
The…
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