After months of review, a local committee recommends that the state impose few new rules on Tampa Bay.
By CRAIG PITTMAN
Published August 28, 2003
ST. PETERSBURG - The first-ever local committee to review proposed boat speed rules for manatee protection is recommending that the state impose few new regulations on Tampa Bay.
The 15-member committee has spent two months reviewing proposals from state wildlife biologists for new boating regulations around the bay, where more than 350 manatees live year-round. A public hearing Tuesday night drew more than 300 people, but the committee's final meeting Wednesday attracted only a dozen spectators.
So far this year, nine manatees have been killed by boats in Pinellas, Hillsborough and Manatee counties, according to state biologists. Since 1974, more than 60 have been killed by boats in Tampa Bay, most of them in the past decade.
State biologists had recommended a host of new speed zones around the bay's shoreline. But the committee, in votes taken during its previous meetings, had repeatedly recommended against those rules.
Instead, on a series of split votes, the committee over and over recommended that the state defer to county or city regulations already in place - even if those regulations were designed to protect sea grass beds and not manatees - or concentrate on educating boaters about the need to slow down.
"I am strongly in favor of allowing local governments to police themselves," said Doug Metko, representing the areas' fishing guides.
During Wednesday's meeting, environmental activists on the committee tried to reopen the discussions about several areas, particularly around Safety Harbor and between the Courtney Campbell Parkway and the Howard Frankland Bridge.
Each attempt was shot down by a coalition that included representatives of dock-building, fishing guides and the boating industry. Two votes were split 7-7 (the chairwoman did not vote).
"I was really disappointed we couldn't do anything there," said Jessica Koelsch of the Ocean Conservancy, who failed to persuade enough of her fellow committee members to change their vote on the Courtney Campbell-to-Howard Frankland area.
One member of the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, David Meehan of St. Petersburg, said he thinks he and his colleagues will give great weight to the committee's recommendations in considering any new Tampa Bay regulations.
In the past, the recommendations of state wildlife biologists would have gone straight to the commissioners for a vote. But a state law now requires that all new boating rules for protecting manatees be reviewed first by a local committee. The Tampa Bay rules are the first to be vetted by such a committee.
"The process went okay, but unfortunately the outcome was not so good," said Suzanne Tarr of the Save the Manatee Club, who served on the committee.
