that has taken place in the upper Bay system during the creation of the 
Port of Tampa and its channels (Figure 2). The filling which resulted in 
the formation of Davis Island alone covered over 800 acres of Bay bottom, 
including productive intertidal marshlands, and that is only a fraction 
of the fill placed in Tampa Bay estuarine waters. Recently the Port of 
Tampa --in conjunction with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service-- 
completed a mitigation study for Tampa Bay (Dial and Deis 1986) with the 
intention of ameliorating some of the problems of past dredging and 
filling activities conducted by all Tampa Bay ports and by other coastal 
developers. Likewise, the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council has 
prepared a report (TBRPC 1985) which includes recommendations for 
corrective action in the Tampa Bay area. 
Besides shoreline fill in the bay, numerous spoil islands have 
also been created (Figure 5). Most of these islands follow the ship 
channels for the obvious reason of disposal ease. Some of the older 
islands were not properly banked or diked and are eroding badly (e.g. the 
Hillsborough Bay spoil islands). Besides causing water quality problems, 
erosion is also contributing to the re-silting of the channels. Other 
islands, including older submerged spoil piles, are likewise eroding 
badly (particularly those paralleling Port Manatee’s cut -- especially 
during northwesterly storm fronts). 
However, if constructed and managed properly, spoil islands can 
have beneficial uses other than to provide future development sites. For 
example, many spoil islands in Tampa Bay are well documented breeding 
sites for numerous species of birds. Sarasota Bay, likewise, has many 
spoil islands along its Intracoastal Waterway which serve as rookeries 
for many birds including brown pelicans. The completion of the West 
Coast Inland Waterway in 1967 (Intracoastal Waterway) which runs north 
from Ft. Myers through Sarasota and Tampa Bays resulted in the removal of 
over 14 million cubic yards of material (West Coast Inland Navigation 
District, personal communication). The 100 foot wide channel, which is 
more than 150 miles in length, is replete with numerous spoil islands. 
It was suggested at the recent Sarasota Bay Symposium (Estevez 1988) that 
proper management and restoration on these islands could be a viable way 
to recover historic habitat lost through coastal development. This 
reiterates management objectives established by New College students 
during their study of spoil islands in Sarasota Bay several years ago 
(Carlson 1971). 
Upland disposal of port spoil material in the Bay area is quite 
limited at this time. One of the largest and most notable sites used to 
contain spoil material generated during maintenance dredging is located 
at Port Manatee. Being a relatively land-rich port, Manatee has 
committed to contain all maintenance dredged spoil upland. Considering 
the spoil material as a resource, Port Manatee has designated over fifty 
acres of the disposal site for development of a finfish hatchery by the 
State of Florida Department of Natural Resources in conjunction with the 
Mote Marine Laboratory (Haddad, this report). 
178 
