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Boaters and environmentalists intensify battle over plans to tighten protections of sea cow.
By JULIE HAUSERMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 25, 2002
ORLANDO -- It's clear Jimmy Buffett would rather do almost anything but talk politics.
He's on tour, getting ready for an arena show in Orlando. Like most of his shows, it will be packed with people celebrating the postcard version of Florida -- palm trees, sandy shoes and margaritas.
But Florida's most famous troubadour has something serious he wants to say.
"I feel," Buffett says in a soft drawl that hints of his native Alabama, "that there are sharks in the water."
He's talking Tallahassee politics, not fishing.
At stake is a cause that the 55-year-old Buffett has been working on for 21 years: protecting the endangered West Indian manatee.
"Saving the manatee -- you'd think it would be something everybody could agree about -- but I was wrong!" Buffett said. "I mean, what's the big deal about slowing down for the manatees? It takes 20 minutes longer to get to the inlet. So what? What are we doing with the time we're saving?"
"It's ironic that people get that angry and violent over the manatee, which is so gentle."
Indeed, the fight over Florida's remaining endangered manatees -- the last count identified 3,276 animals -- has grown intense. With a proposal on the table to close some manatee areas to boats altogether, it's becoming as nasty as the battle over the endangered spotted owl in the northwest.
Several anti-manatee Web sites have popped up, including one with recipes on how to cook sea cows. Last fall, the state made a Fort Myers boat captain take a personalized license plate off his car. It was the standard-issue Save the Manatee plate, but the letters around the little gray manatee read: EAT UMM.
"Manatee extremists want to stop all boating in the state of Florida!" trumpets one of the anti-manatee Web sites, manateestudy.com, registered to a man in Cocoa.
Boating groups are pushing to get the manatee taken off the endangered species list, and re-classified as "threatened." The federal and state governments have agreed to look at the idea.
"When is this animal recovered?," John Sprague of the Marine Industries Association asked at a legislative committee meeting last week. "At what point do we have manatees in every square inch of water in the state?"
Sprague and other boating lobbyists are trying to ease reviews for marinas and pass a controversial bill called The Manatee Protection Act. Manatee advocates say the bill isn't aptly named, and they oppose it.
Says Buffett: "This is about trying to undo rules that, for the most part, have worked in the past. Certain people don't want to go slow in certain areas."
Buffett, Florida's best-known manatee lover, rarely gives interviews. But on this weekday Buffett philosophizes in the lobby of the Peabody Hotel in Orlando, casually dressed in sweat pants, a pullover, and a baseball cap.
More than 250 miles north at the state Capitol, polite disagreement has given way to tough talk.
In an interview last week, the chairman of the state House Natural Resources Committee, Republican Rep. Lindsay Harrington of Punta Gorda, was hostile toward environmentalists and the manatee club Buffett helped start in 1981.
"Just follow the money!" Harrington said, his face reddening and his voice at a near-shout. "The machine -- The Save the Manatee Club -- has gone too far. They are fighting this issue because once you start recovering this critter, it's not an issue anymore! They won't have anything to do!"
Harrington says manatees are "a very, very prolific animal," noting that the state's last aerial count showed a record high population. Boat collisions with manatees are up, too.
Everybody argues about the manatee numbers and what they mean.
Buffett, who founded the Save the Manatee Club with then-Gov. Bob Graham, says something important is getting lost.
"The manatee ought to unite us as Floridians," he said. "I don't go looking for headlines unless its necessary to come out on the radar screen."
A multimillionaire who owns several homes, Buffett has lived in Florida since 1972. He's moved around from the Keys to North Florida, and settled a few years ago on the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach County. He has three children, ages 22, 9, and 7. In the summer, he moves north, to a home he owns on Long Island.
No other performer is so closely identified with Florida. In many ways, Buffett has been a Pied Piper for the Sunshine State. Through song, he's lured people from Ohio and Michigan down south for the good life. The population pressure, he says, is bound to squeeze the manatee -- unless people work to protect the species.
"I'm concerned about the polarization of everybody," Buffett said. "This whole idea of 'the boating industry' and 'the environmental industry' -- it's crazy. Most people who are environmentalists drive boats. The whole point to me about saving the manatee was to educate people about what was out there beyond I-95.
"To me, the manatee represents what we all like about Florida -- kind of cruising in warm clear water and not bothering anybody.
"It's become a symbol to me, and I have to question: What's the problem with taking care of the few animals that are left?"
The controversy over Florida's manatees really started to heat up in 1999, when marine business groups joined together in a new "Manatee Task Force" to get the sea cows removed from the federal endangered species list.
"Perhaps the time has come to delist the manatee, much as the alligator and the eagle have been delisted," read a fall 1999 memo by Wade Hopping, a Tallahassee lobbyist for the National Marine Manufacturers Association.
"Last week," the memo continued, "the marine manufacturers and dealers met in Orlando. Manatees were foremost on their mind. They believe that they have been on the defense for far too long, and therefore they are planning to create a proactive program on manatee issues."
At the time, 22 environmental groups were gearing up to sue the state and federal governments, alleging that wildlife agencies were failing to protect the species. The agencies settled the lawsuits, promising to create a network of manatee refuges. But the federal government started violating the settlement agreement, and environmentalists went back to court.
Things got more bitter. A separate settlement with the state is causing more controversy. It will create safe havens and special boat-speed zones for manatees in various places, including parts of Tampa Bay, portions of Citrus County's Homosassa River, and the Alafia River in Hillsborough County.
At public hearings on the new rules, angry boaters came out in force. Harrington, the lawmaker who sponsors this year's Manatee Protection Act, said he began to hear from his constituents.
"People felt they've been pushed upon, pressed upon, and they have no voice," Harrington said. "It's my belief we're now starting to challenge this" with the Manatee Protection Act, he said.
Last week, the Manatee Protection Act (HB 1473) passed its final committee in the House on the way to a vote on the House floor. The Senate's version (SB 1614) has its first committee hearing Tuesday.
Among other things, the bill says the state's boat speed regulations "shall not unduly interfere with the rights of fishers, boaters and other traditional waterway users."
The state would have to develop a "measurable biological goal" by 2003 to say when the manatee has "recovered." It would force the state to review all its manatee protection rules during the next two years. It narrows the circumstances under which the state can impose boat speed limits, and creates local panels to comment on state and federal manatee rules.
Supporters say the local committees will help smooth things out, because all interests will get a seat at the table. Environmentalists fear the committees will be stacked with anti-manatee interests.
"The bottom line of all this, if the bill passes, is that the lawyers will get richer," Buffett said.
"To this day, the average Floridian thinks the manatee should be protected, and the Legislature should listen to them. If the Legislature doesn't listen to them, they ought to be tossed out.
"I have to hope there are enough people in the state that this will make a difference to. I'm a boater in Palm Beach County. I don't see people yelling and raising hell about slowing down. They seem to be enjoying the view."
-- Times researchers Stephanie Scruggs, Caryn Baird, and Cathy Wos contributed to this report.