Vote to slow boats leads to resignation

RUSKIN - Fast boats aren't welcome anymore in Cockroach Bay.

Hillsborough commissioners decided Oct. 19 to require boaters to slow down around Cockroach Bay, creating a slow-speed zone from the mouth of the Little Manatee River to the Manatee County line.

The Cockroach Bay Users Group, known as C-BUG, had opposed the slow-speed zone. The organization had hoped to keep a previously established voluntary slow-speed zone there.

C-BUG president Charlie Feldshau was the only boater to argue against the changes before commissioners.

Disappointed in the group, Feldshau now is resigning the leadership post.

"Nobody wants to fight the big battles," said Feldshau, who argued that boaters can be trusted to drive responsibly.

Boaters already were required to travel at slow speeds along the eastern Tampa Bay shoreline, from the Alafia to the Little Manatee rivers. And another slow speed zone kept boaters from speeding through waters to the immediate south in Manatee County.

"This was the missing piece of the puzzle," said Elizabeth Fleming, Florida representative for Defenders of Wildlife, an environmental group in St. Petersburg.

Fleming joined nearly a half-dozen manatee advocates supporting the ordinance change at the Oct. 19 commission meeting.

Normal boating speeds still are allowed in a marked channel from the Cockroach Bay boat ramp to Tampa. The county estimates it will cost $34,212 to enact the ordinance.

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