A Times Editorial

Keep Big Brother off sandbar? Well, show he's not necessary

For the past year, boating enthusiasts contended they can police their own behavior at the sandbar north of Anclote Island. Now the onus is on them to prove it.

The state Department of Environmental Protection pulled the plug Tuesday on a fledgling three-year pilot program intended to monitor how well recreational uses mix with environmental protections. But the state did not retreat from rules that mirror controls at other state parks, most notably that alcohol consumption is prohibited and dogs must be leashed.

"This approach will allow the widest latitude in permitting recreational activity," Wendy Spencer, director of Florida Park Services, said in a memorandum to Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey.

That state officials recognized boaters perceived them as overbearing in determining how to enforce the pilot program is laudable. But, the state must be careful not to abdicate its responsibility to manage natural resources while allowing boaters to enjoy coastal Florida.

The pilot program, announced last summer, was a compromise after the state declared the sandbar a Florida park. The site in the gulf west of the Pinellas-Pasco border ranges in size up to 40 acres, depending on the tide. It is a popular boating destination and had no controls previously.

Boaters initially balked at state control, calling it an illegal government land grab. The state acquiesced, relaxed the ban on fires and overnight camping, and established the three-year pilot program to ensure bird habitats were not disrupted.

The state backed away again Tuesday after a committee charged with setting the monitoring rules "created a situation where the solution is worse than the problem," Spencer said.

So the park rules will remain in place, but much of the enforcement will be left to boaters. Dogs must be leashed, though the constraint is no longer limited to 6 feet, and kept on the northeast end of the island. Alcohol consumption remains forbidden.

That is smart. The leash requirement is in accordance with health laws governing public swimming sites, and alcohol shouldn't be free flowing just because boaters promise to pick up their empty cans and bottles.

Enforcement will be done through park staffers and the Bureau of Park Patrol. "However, if the level of self-policing promised by users of the island actually occurs, this should not be necessary except in rare instances," Spencer wrote.

It is now in boaters' best interests to ensure state intervention indeed is a rare occurrence.

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