To better protect manatees, state wildlife officials want Miami-Dade County and a local developer to downsize the proposed Seaquarium marina on Virginia Key.
Editor’s Note: This story was first published on October 27 by WLRN Public Media. The Spotlight is re-publishing the story under a partnership agreement with WLRN.
To better protect manatees, Florida wildlife managers this week recommended the number of slips at a new Seaquarium marina be dramatically reduced by nearly three-quarters.
In its review of the project application, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) said that surveillance data since the 1990s has shown a high amount of activity for manatees in surrounding waters.
Of the nearly 100 manatee deaths that occurred, a third happened near the planned marina, a staff biologist said.
“In order to minimize potential impacts to manatees and their habitats,” he wrote, the total number of slips should be cut from 877 to 250 and plans revised.
The proposed marina, which would accommodate boats up to 200 feet long with nearly 90 slips able to handle boats over 80 feet, has alarmed environmental groups worried about the bay’s shallow waters and marine life.
Manatees were among the first marine mammals added to the endangered species list when it was created in 1973.
In the late 1980s, after Florida lawmakers declared the entire state a manatee sanctuary, Miami-Dade County was ordered to design protection zones.
Mapping the zones was intended to limit boats from crossing paths with manatees and identify the safest place to add marinas. The 1995 plan ultimately adopted included a possible marina at the Seaquarium but set the number of slips at just 31.
Today, a protective buffer in waters around the Seaquarium on Virginia Key restricts speeds for a thousand feet from shore. For much of the island’s western side, in the 700-acre Bill Sadowski Critical Wildlife Area, boats are banned year-round to protect manatees and wading birds.
“There’s been a lot of concern about the size of this marina,” said Lauren Jonaitis, executive director of the Tropical Audubon Society. “Stakeholders have really been saying that we’ve been concerned about the size of the marina. And this is based on the Bay’s Manatee Protection Zones.”
In a statement released in response to questions from WLRN, the company that is seeking to build the marina and redevelop the county-owned Seaquarium property said the recommendation was based on outdated information.
Resilient Aquarium, an affiliate of developer David Martin’s Terra Group in Coconut Grove, also said a new study done for the marina by an emeritus University of Miami Rosenstiel professor contradicts those findings. That study found manatees historically did not use the area.
“Unfortunately, the FWC email correspondence recently circulated is based on incomplete and inaccurate information,” the statement said.
“First, the email does not reflect the current Miami Seaquarium marina proposal. The reviewer evaluated a previous submission from May that included more boat slips than we are now proposing,” the statement said.
The latest plan includes 30 fewer slips, with 295 wet slips and dry storage space for 552 boats. FWC officials did not immediately respond to WLRN for comment.
Under the plan submitted to Florida environmental regulators and reviewed by FWC, Resilient Aquarium and the county proposed a 242,000-square foot marina with seven finger piers and two fishing piers covering nearly 3,000 linear feet of shoreline.
That amounts to about 36 slips per 100 linear feet, FWC said. Rules normally limit the number to ten.
County commissioners are scheduled to consider that application next month, although the application remains largely incomplete with only a third so far submitted.
That application has also drawn scrutiny for being fast-tracked because the marina has not been included in the acreage, which would normally require a more thorough review.
“I get that it’s submerged land, but it’s also protected, and that’s where all the concerns are,” said Laura Reynolds, an advisor to Friends of Biscayne Bay.
“What we’ve been asking for is reduce the wet slips, reduce the size of the boats, protect the sea grass and wetlands, and if you have to, increase dry slips so that you can have a marina that is less impactful to sovereign submerged lands.”
Two residents also sued the county and Resilient Aquarium last week, claiming that signing a lease for the project violates a decades-old amendment approved by voters to protect public land. Under the amendment, voters would need to approve commercial operations in county parks and the aquatic preserve.
Read More: The Seaquarium Project Heads to Court
If approved, Jonaitis worries a larger marina could pave the way for other large projects in areas with fragile wildlife.
“There’s no marina there now and they’re proposing a very, very large marina. So, I would imagine that this was probably a concern for FWC,” she said.
“There’s a lot of other environmental components in this project that are great in many ways. But I think it really is that in-water work, the wet slips, that has everybody kind of on edge.”
