HEAVY INDUSTRY OF TAMPA AND SARASOTA BAYS 
T. Duane Phillips 
Kumar Mahadevan 
Mote Marine Laboratory 
Sarasota, Florida 
Sandra Tippin 
Richard D. Garrity 
Florida Department of Environmental Regulation 
Tampa, Florida 
INTRODUCTION 
Tampa and Sarasota Bays and their tributary rivers and creeks have 
long been used as receiving bodies for man’s domestic and industrial 
wastes. Tampa’s first centralized sewage system was built in the 1890s 
and discharged directly into the Hillsborough River and Hillsborough Bay 
(Garrity, McCann, and Murdoch 1985). As early as 1929, the Alafia River 
was used as a dump for both rock and waste waters by the phosphate 
industry (Lewis and Estevez 1988). Galtsoff (1954) stated more than 30 
years ago that Tampa Bay was "grossly polluted" because of municipal 
sewage discharges and industrial wastes from 6 phosphate mines, several 
citrus canneries and miscellaneous plants. He also noted that most of 
Sarasota Bay was closed to shellfishing because of pollution. A listing 
of waste discharges into the two bay systems in 1968 included 18 
industrial sources in Tampa Bay and 15 industrial sources in Sarasota Bay 
(McNulty, Lindall, and Sykes 1972). Discharges into Sarasota Bay were 
primarily from small laundries with average daily discharges of 0.01 
million gallons/day (mgd). Tampa Bay industrial sources included citrus 
processors, chemical companies, electronics manufacturers, and a variety 
of other industries; the average daily discharge for most of these 
industries was reported as unknown. A review of point source discharges 
in the Tampa Bay area in 1980 listed 59 sources (Moon 1985). This list 
includes both domestic and industrial discharges but did not include 
specific information regarding the types or quantities of materials 
discharged. 
Current records of the Florida Department of Environmental 
Regulation (FDER) show a total of 75 permits for the discharge of 
industrial wastes into the surface waters of Tampa and Sarasota Bays. 
Three power plants located on Tampa Bay which withdraw bay water for 
condenser cooling and discharge thermal effluent into the Bay are not 
included in these FDER permits. Eighteen of the 75 permits are for 
sources considered as major discharges; the remainder are for minor 
discharges. Sewage and sewage treatment plant effluents are not included 
in this total. 
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