Tampa Bay Waterkeeper

Give Day for Tampa Bay

By supporting Tampa Bay Waterkeeper on Give Day Tampa Bay, you're contributing to the protection and restoration of the Tampa Bay watershed, including our beaches, bayous, bays, and rivers. By choosing to #GiveWhereYouLive, you'll be helping us protect your right to clean, fishable, swimmable, and drinkable water.

By donating today, you are helping us fund a crucial program to better monitor the waterways of Tampa Bay for sewage and stormwater pollution. Launching this summer, the Tampa Bay Swim Guide will test water quality at 10 sites throughout Tampa Bay, looking for enterococci and E. coli, indicators for fecal bacteria contamination. With a history of sewage spills in Tampa Bay, including most recently in January 2018, more frequent and consistent monitoring must be done in order to ensure that people are more aware of the issue and more informed when swimming, boating, or fishing in Tampa Bay. 

We will test water quality weekly, all year long, and provide the results every Friday so that you can hit the water with confidence wherever your adventure takes you! All lab analysis will be done through a lab that is certified by the Florida Department of Health, and this is not cheap. Your support allows us to launch and maintain this program so that we can better protect your right to clean water by notifying the public in a more timely manner of potential safety issues as well as by identifying the source and holding polluters accountable.

The analysis alone will cost $5,556 per year, so with a donation of $100, you're sponsoring the water quality monitoring of a site for an entire month. A donation of $10 will cover approximately one week of water quality monitoring for one site. So whether it's $10, $100, or $1,000, your donation will go a long way to safeguarding our most precious resource in Tampa Bay!

More About Tampa Bay Waterkeeper

Tampa Bay Waterkeeper is dedicated to ensuring fishable, swimmable, and drinkable water here in the Tampa Bay watershed!

A clean and resilient watershed is essential to strong communities and a healthy economy. Tampa Bay Waterkeeper works to protect and improve the Tampa Bay watershed by combining sound science, policy advocacy, grassroots community engagement and education. We use this approach to stand up for clean water together as a community, ensuring a clean and vibrant future for the Tampa Bay watershed.

Tampa Bay Waterkeeper, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, is a member of the Waterkeeper Alliance, a movement founded by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. that empowers individuals and communities to protect and improve their local watersheds.

In 1966, commercial and recreational fishers on the Hudson River banded together to hold polluters accountable for destroying their way of life, creating the Waterkeeper movement. This tradition of non-partisan, grassroots activism to protect our water and our livelihoods has been the lifeblood of the movement ever since. Today there are more than 300 Waterkeeper organizations on six continents.

Everyone has a right to clean water in Tampa Bay, and everyone should be able to fish, swim, boat, and play in the bay without undue concern for their health. Help us work together to protect our bay, our water, and our natural heritage!

“Waterkeeper Alliance is thrilled to have Tampa Bay Waterkeeper to be the eyes, ears and voice for this vital watershed and community,” said Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, President of Waterkeeper Alliance. “Every community deserves to have swimmable, drinkable and fishable water, and Tampa Bay Waterkeeper is the right leader to fight for clean water in the region.”