In the months since a coastal inlet known as Midnight Pass was blown open by Hurricane Milton in October, many people say water quality has improved in Little Sarasota Bay.
But questions remain about whether the waterway will stay open. It was closed off with piles of sand in the 1980s after two homeowners asked Sarasota County to protect their beachfront property. Some would like to see the area dredged ever deeper, to make sure it stays open and passable for boats.
Scientist Ping Wang is optimistic it will stay open on its own, due to the power of the water flow as it moves into Little Sarasota Bay from the Gulf of Mexico and back out with the changing tides.
"The pieces should be all in place for this to stay open," said Wang, a geology professor at the University of South Florida.
Wang and his students measured Midnight Pass in October and November, and they found that "the flow is significantly stronger than 3 feet per second, so it really should keep it open," he said.
READ MORE: Keeping Midnight Pass wild is a win for all, says director of Sarasota Bay Estuary Program
The inlet is about 130 feet wide and 15 feet deep, according to Wang. The waterway has shifted a little bit since October, and the beach to the north is shrinking.
"The north side did erode quite noticeably during the months of October and November. However, the beach to the south gained sand," said Wang.
"The issue is, we really have to give enough room for the system to adjust," he added.
Those small shifts aren't enough to indicate a serious likelihood that the pass could close again, but they do indicate that something is blocking the flow of water to the Gulf, according to Wang.
It's "a little curious in that there really should be enough water going in and out to keep that inlet (open), because the bay behind it is quite large. And the fact that it's migrating means there's something blocking the water from draining out of Midnight Pass," he said.
Whatever is interfering with the flow could be something natural or human-made. It might be related to how sand and muck were dredged out and piled up in other spots during the building of the intracoastal waterway decades ago.
READ MORE: People closed a coastal waterway near Siesta Key decades ago. Two hurricanes blew it open
Researchers are still working to figure out the future of Midnight Pass, with the help of computer models to simulate the water flow.
"What our research is about is to see if the disposal of the dredge material and where it was disposed, does it influence the flow through the inlet? I don't have the answer at this point," said Wang.
Wang expects to study Midnight Pass for some time. He calls it a prime example of how nature works out its own solutions — without people doing things like dredging or building jetties to keep an inlet open.
Meanwhile, Sarasota County is also measuring and keeping a close eye on Midnight Pass to see how stable it is and how much it is changing over time.
"It’s too early to determine specific measures that may be implemented to manage the inlet," county Public Works director Spencer Anderson said in an email.
"Ultimately, if the inlet was to close or begin to close, dredging is one of the alternatives that would be considered to manage/maintain an open inlet."
However, Anderson noted, the idea of dredging a northern side of the channel deeper failed years ago, when the Florida Department of Environmental Protection issued a notice of intent to deny a permit and the county withdrew the application.
