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Manatee rules sail through one hearing
By CRAIG PITTMAN, Times Staff Writer
BRADENTON -- State wildlife officials heard little dissent Tuesday over their plans to impose the first-ever boat speed restrictions in Manatee County to protect manatees. Although neither side was completely happy, most boaters and manatee advocates agreed they could live with the restrictions proposed for Terra Ceia Bay, which lies just south of the Sunshine Skyway bridge and the mouth of Tampa Bay. However, manatee advocates suggested the state should tweak the rules to make them stronger, while some boaters questioned where the regulations would stop, and whether they were needed. "You're talking about a non-issue that you guys are doing back flips over for a few radical environmental animal rights people," said Creighton Beddow of Palmetto, who contended manatees are not truly an endangered species. "You people really need to tune your ear to the greater number of people." The new rules resulted from the settlement of a lawsuit filed by a coalition of environmental groups, which accused the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission of failing to adequately protect the manatee. The settlement calls for the commission to consider, but not necessarily adopt, new speed zones in certain areas around the state considered hot spots for manatee deaths. That includes not only Terra Ceia Bay, where a boater killed a pregnant female manatee in just the past few weeks, but also the Alafia River in Hillsborough and the Blue Waters area of the Homosassa River in Citrus County. Most of the 60 people who attended Tuesday's hearing in the Manatee County Commission chambers said they were relieved the state had backed off its original proposal. Initially, the commission staff considered limiting speeds throughout the bay to 25 mph or less. But a February workshop in Bradenton drew 166 people, many of whom complained that the regulations would hurt waterfront property values and curtail water sports. Instead, the commission is now proposing a slow-speed zone 500 feet wide around the edge of the bay, with the center of the bay unregulated. Meanwhile the mouth of the bay would be a 25-mph zone. Activists from the Save the Manatee Club, Defenders of Wildlife and the Ocean Conservancy contended the state should mark the channel through the mouth of the bay as a slow-speed zone too. They also suggested extending the shoreline buffer to where the bay is 6 feet deep, which would match the rule in the rest of Tampa Bay. Tuesday's meeting was a love-in compared with the contentious hearing Monday in Gibsonton on new regulations proposed for the Alafia River. Next week will bring the hearing on rules for the Blue Waters in Citrus County. Wildlife commissioners will vote on all the proposed new rules in a meeting in Kissimmee on Sept. 12, and will accept written comments until that date.
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