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The waters of Lee County, No. 1 in manatee killings, churn with boaters who grumble about a ban on new docks.
By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 17, 2002
CAPE CORAL -- A 22-foot boat pounded across glittering waves at 40 mph, its Mercury outboard roaring. One of the uniformed officers aboard, Tim Kiss of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, flipped on the blue lights in the bow.
His partner, Darrin Riley, steered the boat to intercept two deeply tanned Lee County men spending their sunny Sunday afternoon racing a pair of Yamaha WaveRunners through a slow-speed zone.
Kiss and Riley gave each a $63 citation for violating a law protecting manatees from speeding boats. One man asked when "manatee season" would end. The other grumbled that the officers had ruined his day.
"That's about the average attitude for a manatee violation," Kiss said afterward.
Federal wildlife officials say not enough sunny days are being ruined for Lee County boaters. Last year, Lee had more manatees killed by boats than any other county, with 23. Then boats clobbered eight more in January and February.
So federal officials have declared much of Lee County to be an "area of inadequate enforcement" for manatee protection, blocking federal permits for 110 new docks, to the consternation of builders, boating interests, real estate agents and waterfront residents.
"It seems a little obscene that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could close off Lee County's waterways,' said New Jersey retiree Tony Penn, 57, whose dock permit application has been on hold for months.
Boating rights activists whose groups oppose waterway restrictions say the backlash to the dock ban has brought them lots of new members. They are planning a massive rally for Matlacha Pass on July 4.
Federal officials "have underestimated the orneriness of folks on this issue," said Rick Joyce, Lee County's environmental science director.
Cars and trucks in Lee now sport bumper stickers that say "Docks Don't Kill Manatees." A few also feature window decals showing the cartoon character Calvin urinating on a manatee.
The uproar over the dock ban has turned Lee County into ground zero in Florida's ongoing battle over manatee protection -- a battle the New York Times recently called "one of the fiercest fights over an endangered species since loggers in the Pacific Northwest strung mock spotted owls on the grills of their trucks."
Illustrating that New York Times story was a photo of Lee County Deputy James Erb warning a boater about violating a manatee speed zone. Last Sunday, the first boater Kiss and Riley stopped for speeding in a manatee zone was none other than Erb.
Wearing a hat with the Krispy Kreme logo, Erb was piloting a Carolina Skiff that Kiss and Riley saw plowing along too fast. Erb insisted he had done nothing wrong. The officers let him go.
"We've caught several deputies," Kiss said with a shrug. "We don't want to start a war with them."
Erb could not be reached for comment. His supervisor, Lt. Morgan Bowman, said Erb would get remedial training.
"It just goes to show you that anybody who's not paying attention can violate the zones," Bowman said. "But that's no excuse."
Two weeks ago Ken Stead of the Fort Myers-based Southwest Marine Industry Association pleaded with state wildlife commissioners for help in getting federal officials to lift the dock ban. Lee's "inadequate enforcement" designation bodes ill for other waterfront counties, he said.
"This designation could be applied anywhere in the state," Stead warned commissioners.
Actually, it already has -- including in Tampa Bay.
Along the shorelines of Hillsborough and Pinellas, the designation covers Old Tampa Bay north of MacDill Air Force Base, and stretches from the Alafia River down to the Manatee County line.
Other counties have also been hit with the designation. But there have been few if any requests for dock permits in those areas, so they have not generated the same controversy as in fast-growing Lee.
Lee County has more than 1,000 miles of natural shoreline and 232 square miles of inshore waters, thanks in part to a complex system of canals dug in Cape Coral in the 1960s and 1970s.
Because of the ban, "people who have got lots on man-made canals -- and the reason the canals were dug was so people could have access to the water -- they've got half a million dollars invested in a lot and they can't use it for the purpose it was intended," said Ben Nelson, who owns a dock-building business.
Last year, federal officials authorized nearly 600 Lee dock permits, more than any other coastal county. They also approved expanding a Fort Myers marina owned by Al Hoffman Jr., Republican National Committee finance chairman. The marina was allowed to expand from 65 powerboat slips to 190.
Boats are big business in Lee County. In the past four years, the number of boats registered there has grown by 10,000, and last year topped 43,000 -- almost all of them pleasure boats.
The resistance to manatee regulations in Lee is formidable. The only time the state has lost a legal challenge to manatee regulations was a 1995 case involving a Lee County marina.
A Fort Myers boat captain made headlines recently because his "Save the Manatee" license plate said, "EAT UMM." And some local bait shops offer "manatee burgers" on their menus.
Two years ago, William "Doug" Wilkinson took his 19-foot boat into the Caloosahatchee River and deliberately violated a manatee speed zone to get a ticket. He then challenged the legality of the manatee regulations because, he argued, the state had usurped his "constitutional right to travel." He lost the suit but is now appealing.
Wilkinson is no anti-government militant. He's the administrator for the court system in Fort Myers. He testified that his fishing club includes seven local judges and several attorneys now representing him for free.
Florida first passed a law protecting manatees from harm in 1892. The first reports of manatees being hit by boats surfaced in 1943. But only once has anyone been prosecuted for killing a manatee with a boat. That case was nearly 20 years ago.
Instead, state and federal wildlife officials protect manatees by ticketing boaters. Last weekend, federal agents charged 61 people in Lee County with violating manatee zones, "and observed many more that we were unable to take enforcement action on," said Special Agent Vance Eaddy.
Last year, state officials posted new speed zones throughout the county's waterways. Federal wildlife officials expected those new zones to provide greater protection for the manatees. Instead, the number killed by boats nearly doubled from 2000.
"We were really hoping to see the fix, and instead we saw this spike of manatee deaths," said Jay Slack, field supervisor of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's Vero Beach office.
So his agency is holding up dock permits until his staff can figure out what went wrong. They know this is not the solution, Slack said, but it will have to do for now.
"We know where there aren't boats, boats aren't going to hit manatees," he said. Docks mean boats, "and when you add the boats in the wrong place, or in high enough numbers, manatees are going to be killed."
Jim Kalvin of the boating rights group Standing Watch contends the regulations themselves are to blame because they funnel boats into too narrow an area, creating hazardous conditions. Save the Manatee Club spokeswoman Laura Combs suggested there are too few wildlife officers patrolling the water and they are "incredibly overworked and underpaid."
"We are stretched very thin," agreed Capt. Denis Grealish, who oversees the Fort Myers office of the state wildlife agency.
Slack said there is no timetable for lifting the ban, but one thing likely to help will be the three new state wildlife officers scheduled to be posted to Lee County by December. Grealish said their arrival will mark his first increase in staff in 12 years.
The new officers will have their hands full. Four years of studies have found that there are so many boats in Lee County now, "it's like a boat parade" on weekends, said Mote Marine Laboratory researcher Jay Gorzelany. "It averages out to one boat going through every eight seconds."
That has been deadly for more than just manatees. Lee led the state last year in the number of people killed by boats: seven. Boating has become so dangerous that dock builder Nelson and his wife, Lori, won't go out on the water anymore.
"It's just not worth it," Mrs. Nelson said. "There's no licensing, no mandatory boater education, and it can be quite frightening. . . . We've reached our carrying capacity. We're way beyond it."
-- Staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report. It also contains information from the New York Times.