Tampa Bay Times: In 1990, Tampa Bay was designated an Estuary of National Significance by Congress, joining a small group of the nation's most beloved -- and troubled -- waterways. Like its sister estuaries of New York Harbor, Puget Sound and San Francisco Bay, Tampa Bay had been pummeled by decades of dredging, development and disregard. The bay was so polluted that it was the subject of a 60 Minutes expose.
At the time it entered the National Estuary Program, Tampa Bay already had a dedicated corps of scientists,...