o The Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council; 
o The Southwest Florida Water Management District; 
o The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; 
o The National Marine Fisheries Service; 
o The Florida Department of Natural Resources; 
o The Florida Department of Environmental Regulation; 
o The Florida Department of Community Affairs; 
o The Florida Department of Transportation; 
o The Florida Marine Patrol; 
o Environmental interests in the Tampa Bay region; 
o Commercial interests in the Tampa Bay region; 
o Industrial interests in the Tampa Bay region; 
o Science and academic interests in the Tampa Bay region; 
o Recreational interests in the Tampa Bay region; 
o Hillsborough, Manatee, and Pinellas Counties representatives; 
o Tampa, Manatee and St. Petersburg Port Authorities; 
o The Cities of Tampa and St. Petersburg; 
o Two other municipalities bordering Tampa Bay, and 
o The Tampa Bay region at large. 
Sarasota Bay 
Sauers (1988) and Estevez (1988) suggest that Sarasota Bay should 
be considered as unmanaged rather than mismanaged. Major decisions which 
affect the resource value of Sarasota Bay have historically resulted in a 
decline of its once pristine quality. Decisions to fill submerged bottom 
lands for residential development, discharge wastewater, dredge the 
Intracoastal Waterway, and accelerate input of large quantities of 
stormwater runoff have been made without adequate technical information 
regarding the consequences of such actions. Future decisions, such as 
construction of a cross-bay bridge, the retrofitting of urban stormwater 
and wastewater systems, or how to cope with rising sea level also have 
the potential to be made without close ecological scrutiny (Sauers 1988). 
Formerly, development decisions in and around the bay were based 
on intuition tempered somewhat by the lessons learned through mistakes 
which wasted natural resources. Now, faced with the evidence of past 
mistakes and the realization that we can no longer move to escape such 
damage, a more formal approach to decisions concerning the development 
and natural resources is considered necessary. It is imperative to 
allocate coastal resources before the rapid pace of development 
eliminates the most desirable options and results in irretrievable and 
irreversible commitments of these resources (Sauers 1988). 
Estevez (1988) reported that natural resource management is most 
effective when the resource is viewed as a single ecological unit. 
Sarasota Bay is not managed as a system at the present time, however. 
Decisions are made on a case specific basis without the benefit of 
experience from nearby cases or an overall strategy or goal for the bay. 
No system for bay management presently exists. Consequently, Sarasota 
Bay should be considered unmanaged rather than mismanaged. 
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