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Boat ramp would harm Honeymoon ambience

Re: County must also consider boaters' needs in ramp issue, editorial, Sept. 13.

Nice analysis, nice editorial. I for one am strongly opposed to a boat ramp at Honeymoon Island, but I also understand the frustration of ramp-challenged boaters. Maybe one ramp - with restrictions - would work out there, but the multiuse ramp as proposed would be an idiotic blunder.

If you stood at the Honeymoon Island entrance gate and asked the visitors why they were there, you would hear an almost universal refrain: "To escape the stress, noise and urbanization of Pinellas County." The natural setting, the walking trails, the woods, the remote beaches, all offer a far different and more peaceful experience than most other beaches - and even different than the adjoining Dunedin Causeway.

Yet, even on the sometimes raucous causeway, there are restrictions. Noisy watercraft are allowed, but only in certain areas, fishing is allowed, but not on the main walkway side of the bridges. Even the hours of access to the causeway are controlled. Without these restrictions, the causeway recreation areas would be pure chaos. As it is, the police are kept fairly busy out there on the weekends.

Honeymoon Island is a state park for many good reasons, but those reasons are kept safe only by an adherence to an even more serious set of restrictions. Much effort is made to protect the flora and fauna, but if you read between the lines on many other rules, it's obvious that ambience is a high priority at Honeymoon Island. Indeed, if you take away the ambience, you take away the very reason Honeymoon Island became a state park in the first place.

Boat ramps are lousy for ambience. That's why nobody wants one in their back yard! So why put a ramp in the one place where ambience has the greatest value?

And one more thing worries me. The people advocating loudest for a boat ramp at Honeymoon Island are the people most likely to destroy the ambience. Task force member Doug Metko is a boaters' rights activist. His Web site, www.saveoursandbar.com exposes him as a person with zero grasp of the ambience/environmental/crowd control issues. If he is representative of the boaters who want to use the Honeymoon Island ramp, then big trouble is brewing.

If there must be a ramp on Honeymoon Island, I can only hope it is one with enough restrictions to minimize the loss of ambience. Please continue to shed light on this issue.

We have bigger problems to solve

County must also consider boaters' needs in ramp issue, editorial, Sept. 13.

Why?

Why must Pinellas County take on the responsibility of providing water access to boat owners, especially if they're not from Pinellas County?

Where is it written anywhere that any government is responsible for the provision of boat ramps to one small segment of the population?

Don't we have more urgent problems requiring attention, such as the dismal state of education in Florida, or the depletion of potable water resources, or polluted air, or seriously flawed transportation priorities?

Florida's obsession with development has created this so-called "crisis." The way to manage this "crisis" is not to build more boat ramps, but to change Florida's obsession with development as a means to hold the line on the dreaded "t" word - taxes.

Amend the development code to ensure that water access is not lost through redevelopment of properties with water access for boaters or where there could be access to water for boaters.

I once assumed that the St. Petersburg Times had more foresight than to succumb to the siren song of one very misguided Pinellas County politician, Commissioner Susan Latvala. Shame on you!

Moderate-sized ramps make sense

Re: County must also consider boaters' needs in ramp issue, editorial, Sept. 13.

Thank you for finally interjecting some logic and common sense into this silly boat ramp debate! I think you hit on a fine answer to the problem: moderate-sized ramps in multiple locations would have the least environmental and traffic impact.

Of course, NIMBYs never listen to any voice but their own. Honeymoon Island is a perfect place for some new ramps, which would do far less harm to the environment than the fleet of boats and personal watercraft launching off the shores of the Dunedin Causeway every weekend.

An inappropriate place for ramps

Re: County must also consider boaters' needs in ramp issue, editorial, Sept. 13.

Your editorial on the issue of boat ramps at Honeymoon Island neglects to mention many very important points.

The causeway out to the island is two lanes over two large bridges with no shoulders. It is impossible for emergency vehicles to access the island now when it is overloaded, much less when another 300 or so cars and boat trailers would attempt to enter the park. Over a thousand residents live on the island. If one of them died because paramedics could not get to them, it would be a tragedy dwarfing the absence of a boat ramp or two (or six as now proposed).

Barrier islands and the mangroves that surround them are a necessity in the hurricane areas where we live. Ripping out the mangroves for boat ramps leaves us open to destruction.

The environment would be forever changed with the addition of powerboats in the inner bay. All of the nesting birds, the manatees and the redfish that inhabit the shallows would surely disappear. The water would become polluted and so would the air. The noise would be tremendous.

Those of us who are against the construction of boat ramps on Honeymoon Island are not against powerboats or boat ramps. There are appropriate places to put them. But there is no more inappropriate place for them to go than the pristine inner bay of Honeymoon Island.

We truly thank the Dunedin city commissioners for looking out for the 4,000 people who live on the Dunedin Causeway and the many hundreds of thousands of passive users of the park who choose to spend quiet times there every year. Not one of them comes to launch a powerboat.

Stauffer site is best bet for boat ramps

Re: County must also consider boaters' needs in ramp issue, editorial, Sept. 13.

I applaud the editorial concerning boaters' access to water and understand Dunedin's concerns about not wanting one in their back yard. I have sent messages to the county commissioners several times concerning why they do not look at the Stauffer site in the north part of Pinellas County for a marine park with plenty of launch area and, most importantly, lots of parking.

The property is a Superfund site, a major brownfield, and is not really usable for much of anything, except for a parking lot. Use of that property as a launch area and parking makes sense.

It is also in the area of where most of the major residential growth is taking place, giving good access to the water for north Pinellas, northwest Hillsborough, and south Pasco counties.

Go ahead and put a playground, mini golf course, restrooms with showers and shelters there, and make it a place where the family can come and enjoy the day, even if everyone in the family does not want to go out on the boat. They can stay behind and enjoy themselves at the park.

There may be federal grant money available for the improvements as well. Give it some thought, it makes sense.

[Last modified September 16, 2005, 01:36:17]