The Southwest Florida Water Management District (District) will hold a virtual public meeting at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, June 20, to review and solicit public feedback on the 2023 Tampa Bay Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) plan.

The SWIM Program evaluates priority water bodies, identifies potential problems and implements projects to improve their water quality or habitat. The draft Tampa Bay SWIM Plan is available for review at https://www.swfwmd.state.fl.us/projects/swim/tampa-bay.

Members of the public may join the workshop via Microsoft Teams through this link: https://bit.ly/SWIMTampaBay. The Google Chrome browser is recommended for best compatibility with Microsoft Teams. For telephone-only participation, dial (786) 749-6127 and when prompted enter the conference code ID: 128 430 022#.

Public comment may also be submitted after the public workshop by emailing swimplanupdate@swfwmd.state.fl.us until 5 p.m., Tuesday, June 28. The meeting agenda can be found on the District’s calendar.

In 1987 the Florida Legislature created the Surface Water Improvement and Management (SWIM) Act to protect, restore and maintain Florida's highly threatened surface water bodies. Under this act, the state's five water management districts identify a list of priority water bodies within their authority and implement plans to improve them.

The Tampa Bay SWIM Plan draws heavily on the Tampa Bay Estuary Program’s (TBEP) Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan (CCMP), the Tampa Bay Nitrogen Management Consortium Reasonable Assurance Plan, and other relevant documents. The TBEP CCMP was last updated in 2017 and serves as a community blueprint for action over a 10-year planning horizon. The CCMP synthesizes decades of scientific research into the bay’s most pressing problems and reflects broad-based input from citizens, stakeholders, and communities with a common interest in a healthy bay as the cornerstone of a prosperous economy. The Tampa Bay SWIM Plan does not duplicate the TBEP’s CCMP, rather it uses the CCMP as a reference to identify those elements that align with SWIM’s core missions of water quality and natural systems.