The City of Key West is considering another effort to widen the channel leading into Key West Harbor to accommodate larger cruise ships.  Here are my comments on why this is not a good idea.  DeeVon Quirolo dquirolo @gmail.com

Updated July 9th, 2011

Despite the implementation of best efforts to prevent it, sedimentation created by the outright removal of habitat during the project to widen the channel  heading into Key West Harbor will have immediate and long term negative impacts on nearby coral reefs such as Sand Key, Rock Key and Eastern Dry Rocks.

The amount of sediment that will be generated will be significant.  Not the natural sediment that is stirred up during a storm, but by the significant amount of matter created by the outright removal and destruction of the bottom and loosening of sand, coral, and rock that will be suspended and carried by the outgoing tides to the reef.   There will be an immediate, complete loss of marine life to portions of the channel and harbor during the project.  And there will be chronic re-suspended sediment whenever a large ship navigates the newly-excavated portions of the channel.

Whether by blasting or other means, no matter how carefully it is done and to what degree this bottom material is removed, it will generate significant turbidity and sediment that–depending on the currents– will be carried to the offshore coral reefs.  The plume of sediment will cloud the water and prevent photosynthesis from occurring that reduces the conditions needed for healthy coral and marinelife.  Key West Harbor is home to endangered sea turtles and dolphins. Their habitat will be degraded  as well.

The sediment will cover hard and soft corals such as Elkhorn and Staghorn, branching corals that are incapable of sloughing it off.  Elkhorn and Staghorn corals have been placed on the U.S. Endangered Species list.  These once common corals at Eastern Dry Rocks and other local reefs have experienced massive losses that have been documented here by Craig Quirolo.  Corals need clear, clean, nutrient-free waters to thrive. The coating of sediment will prevent  these and other corals from feeding under such conditions and they cannot survive. This will further reduce the few remaining endangered colonies in the area and should be a major reason why the harbor should not be widened.

Soft corals such as purple sea fans will also become stuffed with sediment.  Significant losses of sea fans have already been documented at Key West-area coral reefs.   Sponges filter and clean the ocean and provide habitat for spiny lobster and other crustaceans.  The sediment will overwhelm them as well.   Seagrasses, which are protected under state and federal law, and which stabilize the ocean bottom, will be removed, causing more sedimentation.

If the dredging is done during the coral spawning period in August, it could do significant damage to corals that are attempting to propagate, as the new corals must settle on a clean surface to take hold and grow.  Sediment would prevent that from happening.  If permitted, no dredging should be allowed during coral spawning.

In short, dredging the channel leading to Key West Harbor to widen it for cruise ships would be a terrible idea for Key West’s coral reef ecosystem.  It would further threaten endangered corals and sea turtles and destroy live bottom in existing areas adjacent to the channel and at the reef.  This is a coral reef that is already under tremendous stress from other impacts and is showing the strain; there is little living coral coverage left and all that is there should be strongly protected.

This dredge project is exactly the type of activity that is prohibited by the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.  The rules of the sanctuary explicitly prohibit dredging.   The additional protection of the U.S. Endangered Species Act designation of corals that will be destroyed add another layer of protection that should strengthen the ability to just say “NO” to a project that will destroy acres of living marine life.

Continue reading National Business Forum on Marine Spatial Planning by World Ocean Council July 13-14, 2011 in D.C. →

USA: Key West Officials Want Another Harbor Dredging Study

Posted on Jan 20th, 2011

Key West city leaders are continuing to explore widening the shipping channel that leads into the city’s commercial harbor to accommodate newer, larger cruise ships.

The most recent step was authorization from the Key West City Commission for staff and lobbyists to push for federal authorities to authorize a $5.48 million study taking a detailed look at the economic and environmental impacts of widening the half-mile Cut B from 300 feet to 450 feet, allowing for bigger ships.

In a study released in November, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pegged the total cost of such a project at $35 million.

Welcoming bigger ships with more passengers has long been controversial in Key West, pitting two old foes: Old Town quality of life versus a reliance on a tourism-based economy.

“I think this is going quietly along,” Commissioner Teri Johnston said, but it needs to be a major discussion.”

She mentioned an April 2010 panel discussion sponsored by environmental group Last Stand; of six panelists representing stakeholders including the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary and small business, the Key West Chamber of Commerce was the only group in favor.

Johnston drove that point home in an exchange with City Manager Jim Scholl at a special City Commission meeting on Jan. 13.

“It’ll take years,” Scholl said of widening the harbor, “but we need to start if the community believes we need to continue to support a level of cruise-ship activity that we know the industry is going to evolve to.”

“Do we know if the community supports that?” Johnston asked.

“I don’t know if everybody believes that,” Scholl came back, adding that he knew the chamber supported it. “When do we hit that point where it’s too far to turn back?” Johnston asked. “Where do we hit that point where we’re no longer able to say we’ve decided to pull the plug on this?”

“Obviously the city of Key West is going to have to support the process from start to finish,” Scholl said. “If it doesn’t get resourced, it won’t happen.” He said there would have to be some money coming from the city but at this early point, no exact figure is clear.

“I want to proceed,” Johnston said on Tuesday, “knowing exactly where we’re at, when we can pull the plug if we decide to pull the plug as a community, and what the total impact is going to be.”

On the other hand, Commissioner Mark Rossi, who owns a large bar and entertainment complex on tourist-friendly Duval Street, supports the prospective dredging.

“If we don’t stay on top of widening that channel,” he said, “we’re going to be left in the wake of this and you’re going to be looking at more taxes to push on people. This is something that needs to be done. If you lose the cruise-ship business, the devaluation of Duval Street — it’s going to be a major impact here. I want to push it.”

By SEAN KINNEY (keysnet)

Traffic

Source: keysnet, January 20, 2011; Image: Picasa, October 6, 2008

By Amanda Cochran

The upcoming Fourth of July weekend means many Americans will be hitting their local beaches.

But a new report by the environmental action group, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) – which ranks the nation’s beaches by cleanliness each year – shows that 2010 saw the second-highest number of beach closings on record – and the economic impact is devastating to communities who rely on tourism as their main source of income.

A factor in those closures, CBS News Business and Economics Correspondent Rebecca Jarvis noted on “The Early Show,” has been the BP oil spill.

“One hundred and seventy million gallons of oil flowed into the Gulf as a result of the BP oil spill,” Jarvis said on “The Early Show.” “It affected 1,000 plus miles of shoreline, and in particular, it really hit Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida — those were the worst impacted but Louisiana was number one.”

Louisiana alone, Jarvis said, estimates losses could exceed $295 million by 2013, according to the state’s Department of Tourism.

“That is a huge number,” Jarvis remarked. “Alabama has seen its beach traffic go down 41 percent. Mississippi has seen traffic go down, and in particular Mississippi, for example, they rely on revenue from the gambling industry, and they’ve lost more than $100 million, they expect from all of this.”

In addition to the effects of oil, contamination from other forms of pollution also helped put certain beaches on the NRDC’s list.

Jarvis explained, “(They’re the types of things) that we see every single day in the country, the runoff from rain water, in addition to that, human and animal waste, and these are things, it sounds nasty, it can translate to significant diseases, things like respiratory problems, flu-like symptoms, and it’s worse when you’re a senior citizen or a child and you have an immune system that is in a worse position.”

Check out the NRDC’s “Top 10 Repeat Offender” beaches:

According to the NRDC, “Over the last five years of this report, sections of 10 U.S. beaches have stood out as having persistent contamination problems, with water samples exceeding health standards more than 25 percent of the time for each year from 2006 to 2010:

California: Avalon Beach in Los Angeles County (3 of 5 monitored sections):
Avalon Beach – Near Busy B Cafe
Avalon Beach – North of GP Pier
Avalon Beach – South of GP Pier

California: Cabrillo Beach in Los Angeles County

California: Doheny State Beach in Orange County (2 of 6 monitored sections):
Doheny State Beach – North of San Juan Creek
Doheny State Beach – Surfzone at Outfall

Florida: Keaton Beach in Taylor County

Illinois: North Point Marina North Beach in Lake County

New Jersey: Beachwood Beach West in Ocean County

Ohio: Villa Angela State Park in Cuyahoga County

Texas: Ropes Park in Nueces County

Wisconsin: Eichelman beach in Kenosha County

Wisconsin: South Shore Beach in Milwaukee

The NRDC also named these so-called “Superstar Beaches,” ranked highly for water quality, testing and public notifications:

Delaware: Rehoboth Beach-Rehoboth Avenue Beach, in Sussex County
Delaware: Dewey Beach, in Sussex County
Minnesota: Park Point Lafayette Community Club Beach, in St. Louis County
New Hampshire: Hampton Beach State Park in Rockingham County

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/25-5

The report that the ocean is in trouble is no surprise. What is shocking is that it has taken so long for us to make the connection between the state of the ocean and everything we care about – the economy, health, security – and the existence of life itself.

If the ocean is in trouble – and it is – we are in trouble. Charles Clover pointed this out in The End of the Line, and Callum Roberts provided detailed documentation of the collapse of ocean wildlife – and the consequences – in The Unnatural History of the Sea.

Since the middle of the 20th century, more has been learned about the ocean than during all preceding human history; at the same time, more has been lost. Some 90 per cent of many fish, large and small, have been extracted. Some face extinction owing to the ocean’s most voracious predator – us.

We are now appearing to wage war on life in the sea with sonars, spotter aircraft, advanced communications, factory trawlers, thousands of miles of long lines, and global marketing of creatures no one had heard of until recent years. Nothing has prepared sharks, squid, krill and other sea creatures for industrial-scale extraction that destroys entire ecosystems while targeting a few species.

The concept of “peak oil” has penetrated the hearts and minds of people concerned about energy for the future. “Peak fish” occurred around the end of the 1980s. As near-shore areas have been depleted of easy catches, fishing operations have gone deeper, further offshore, using increasingly sophisticated – and environmentally costly – methods of capture.

The concern is not loss of fish for people to eat. Rather, the greatest concern about destructive fishing activities of the past century, especially the past several decades, is the dismemberment of the fine-tuned ocean ecosystems that are, in effect, our life-support system.

Photosynthetic organisms in the sea yield most of the oxygen in the atmosphere, take up and store vast amounts of carbon dioxide, shape planetary chemistry, and hold the planet steady.

The ocean is a living system that makes our lives possible. Even if you never see the ocean, your life depends on its existence. With every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, you are connected to the sea.

I support this report and its calls to stop exploitative fishing – especially in the high seas – map and reduce pollution and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But I would add three other actions.

First, only 5 per cent of the ocean has been seen, let alone mapped or explored. We know how to exploit the sea. Should we not first go see what is there?

Second, it is critically important to protect large areas of the ocean that remain in good condition – and guard them as if our lives depend on them, because they do. Large marine-protected areas would provide an insurance policy – and data bank – against the large-scale changes now under way, and provide hope for a world that will continue to be hospitable for humankind.

Third, take this report seriously. It should lift people from complacency to positive action – itself cause for hope.