Unofficial mayor watches over Pine Island waters

His platform is water safety and he wants power craft a legal distance from the shore.

By BETH N. GRAY
Published July 6, 2004

PINE ISLAND - From where Bill Cope sits on his lawn chair beneath swaying palms in front of his beachfront home, he sees personal watercraft skipping over the inshore waters, screaming and weaving at 60 mph.

He also sees airboats bending tight curves as their pilots maneuver past his slice of beach, which is 600 feet from the designated swimming area at Albert McKethan Park and Beach.

For Cope, 68, his concern with the personal watercraft and airboats isn't about safeguarding his beachfront tranquility. It's not because his 16-foot Hobie Cat sailboat is sometimes rocked by waves from powered boaters that get too close, he says.

The Salt Lake City native said he is speaking up for the underdogs on the water - swimmers, canoeists, kayakers and nonengine sailboat owners, like himself.

He takes his title as the unofficial mayor of Pine Island and his responsibilities to the unincorporated area seriously.

"On weekends, we get lots of people in kayaks, canoes and small sailboats," Cope said from in front of his two-story house recently.

"People are crabbing. There are small kids, people who like to bob up and down up to their heads," he said. Some swimmers drift from the public beach. "You can't tell a head from a crab pot," Cope said.

When they get that close, powered watercraft are putting others at risk, he says.

"With the current situation of people, pets, babies and small boats, it's not a matter of whether an accident is going to happen," he said. "It's how soon."

Last year, Cope contacted George Bennett, waterways technician with the Hernando County parks and recreation department, and provided him with maps along with a request for regulations.

But erecting in-water signs takes time. The department had to get approval from the U.S. Coast Guard, the Army Corps of Engineers and the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, parks and recreation director Pat Fagan said.

In June, two signs were posted 400 feet out in the gulf and just north of the county park's swimming area. On the beach side, the signs read, "Idle speed. No wake." On the gulf side, they read, "Resume safe operating speed."

Pine Island is now a safer place, Cope believes. But problems linger. In recent weeks, Cope has watched an airboat make high-speed circles around one of the signs; he saw another airboat racing halfway between a sign and the shore.

The airboats were not only violating the idle speed/no wake order, Cope said, but also a two-year-old county ordinance that requires airboats to cut to idle speed within 1,000 feet of any dwelling or road.

Fagan hopes the signs will inform watercraft operators. The department's waterways staff and the sheriff's marine patrol have authority to issue citations to violators.

"It can't be covered 100 percent of the time," Fagan said.

Cope said the county needs to make an example of some of the offenders.

"If they'd write a couple of tickets, (the violations) would stop," he said.

That's easier said than done. By the time he calls in to report speeding watercraft, the offenders have left the area, he said.

"And there's another problem," Cope added.

The noise from airboats is "obnoxious." If airboats observed the 1,000-foot limit, the sound would be drastically reduced and wouldn't be a nuisance for beachfront residents.

[Last modified July 5, 2004, 20:21:05]