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Sun City Resident Pushes Uzita Reserve

Photo by YVETTE HAMMETT

Former blue crabber Gus Muench, who lives along the Little Manatee River, displays a map of an area of Cockroach Bay he would like redesignated as the Uzita Reserve to bring it more attention.

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By YVETTE C. HAMMETT

yhammett@tampatrib.com

Published: January 28, 2009

SUN CITY - Gus Muench contributed to the tens of thousands of propeller scars that pock the seagrass beds in Cockroach Bay.

He readily admits guilt.

As a blue crabber in the area for 32 years, the guilt finally got to him in 2006, he said. He hung up his traps and built himself a bully pulpit.

These days, he's a lone voice on the shoreline pushing for a new designation for the stretch of brackish water between the Manatee County line to the south and the Little Manatee River to the north.

He wants to call it the Uzita Reserve, after an Indian village that once flanked the sands there. Doing so, he believes, could bring awareness to the bay and grant money to educate people about how to keep it healthy.

So far, he's not getting a lot of positive input.

"We need to put more significance on the area," Muench said. "We need a low-impact management plan. Right now, the coordination is not cohesive."

A handful of agencies oversee various aspects of Cockroach Bay, from manatee slow-speed zones to seagrass protection, shoreline restoration and law enforcement.

Bringing them together at one table could go far to protect the waterway, Muench said.

But to some, changing the name and drawing a line around the area will make little difference without better enforcement of existing laws.

"The key to making anything work down there is enforcement," said Tom Ash, general manager of environmental restoration for Hillsborough County's Environmental Protection Commission. "Without that, I'm not sure a name change would accomplish anything. You can call it whatever you want."

The Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission continues to deny raises to its law enforcement employees, so they leave, along with their specialized knowledge, for better paying jobs, Ash said.

It's a lack of bodies, he said.

The bottom line, Ash said, is that prop scars have ripped up seagrass beds important to nearly every marine creature in the bay.

"As a community," he said, "we need to be doing something about it."

Reporter Yvette C. Hammett can be reached at (813) 865-1566.

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