Scott Atwell, Communications and Outreach Manager for the Florida Keys Marine Sanctuary, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday to talk about what’s been going on in the sanctuary.
There have been a number of groundings lately.
Atwell said, “It was a busy weekend, for sure, we had a boat fire off of Key West and we had a grounding at Bahia Honda. But those aren’t the ones I’m going to talk about, because they didn’t damage the coral. We do have a couple in the Upper Keys that actually damaged the coral. When these groundings happen, our resource protection team goes into action, and they first assess what can be done with the vessel, does it have to be removed? Sometimes they’re even fundraisers, finding the money to remove vessels. Then they get in the water and assess the damage, and our science team comes in behind them, and if corals have been dislodged, they get back in there and start the restoration process to get the corals back on.”
There were two recent incidents that required that restoration.
Atwell said, “One last week was at Cheeca Rocks, right off Islamorada, and the vessel’s still out there. It’s a shrimp boat right off the island or resort, and it was in route from Cape Canaveral to Haiti being delivered to its new owner when it experienced engine trouble, it anchored. The captain thought he had the engine trouble fixed, and so at three in the morning, he pulls his anchor, no engine, and he starts to drift. He drifted for a long time. This boat draws nine feet, and it was dragging over water that was about four feet, and so there was damage. Our team got in there. The Coast Guard had to remove fuel from this vessel. Then our team got in and found, actually, over 150 coral fragments that were dislodged. So the sanctuary team recovered those coral fragments. Larger ones were left on site in a safe place. The smaller ones were taken to Mote Marine Lab and we’re now in the process of establishing the plan to get those reattached, and they use an epoxy cement type product to actually reattach those. We’ve got to put Humpty Dumpty back together. The same thing happened off of Key Largo at Cannon Patch a month ago, a 50 foot sailboat grounded and again damaged about 25 pieces of coral, some very large, and our team has gone back in there, and those 25 pieces have been reattached. So that’s kind of the work that we do and a tip of the cap to the team to put the puzzle back together and keep the sanctuary safe. That’s our job.”
The vessel in Cheeca Rocks had about 1,000 gallons of diesel on board that Coast Guard did successfully remove.
Atwell said, “This is a team effort, so our resource protection team goes into action, but we work with the Coast Guard. We work with FWC as a partnership to make these things happen. So the Coast Guard took care of the fuel. FWC does its part. We do our part. We all work together. FWC has flagged that boat put as a derelict vessel now because the supposed new owner in Haiti is now questioning whether or not he wants to take possession of that boat. So FWC has tagged it as a derelict vessel, which starts the clock ticking on the derelict, it’s 21 day and then we can salvage it through the program that we have with the state and get it out of there. But it’s going to be there for at least 21 days, I would guess, unless the new supposed owner decides he’s going to do something.”
The Advisory Council for the National Marine Sanctuary met yesterday.
Atwell said, “It was very brief. Restoration blueprint is always going to be a topic. We’re still waiting to brief up to our new NOAA leadership, that’s going to happen in a couple of weeks. So we can figure out how to move forward with implementing restoration blueprint in federal waters and not in the state waters, since the Governor vetoed that. Our council chair, Ben Daughtry of Marathon, started the process of fielding the adaptive management working group, which is going to be this new committee of the council that’s going to advise leadership on changes that need to be made so we don’t have to wait 11 years like restoration blueprint took. So tip of the cap to all of our council members. They represent all of the user groups in the Florida Keys, who use the sanctuary, even citizens at large who just enjoy it from a distance, viewing it, that’s what the Council represents, and their primary objective is to provide feedback to our superintendent about things that need to be done. By the way, I don’t know if I mentioned it the last time I was on but David Burke is now our new acting superintendent. Matt Stout had come down back in November when Sarah Fengman moved out west and Matt came from our national office in Washington, DC, but after four months, he was needed back there. So our deputy superintendent, David Burke, has been moved up to acting superintendent, and another team member, Beth Dieveney is now the Acting Deputy Superintendent. They can be in those roles for up to a year. We had the process in place to find Sarah’s successor, her permanent successor, but it got, all tied up in a change of administration, and all the positions got frozen. It’s business as usual. We’re doing well.”
A clean up is scheduled this weekend in Key West and people can help.
Atwell said, “This is a cleanup that’s in celebration of Earth Day was, which is Tuesday, April 22 is Earth Day. It’s the 55th anniversary and because of that, our Eco Discovery Center is organizing a cleanup of the Key West nature preserve. This is on Atlantic Boulevard in Key West, between Bertha and White Street. It’s going to take place Saturday, from 9am to 11, there’s free parking along the street. We are going to provide the trash grabbers and the gloves. So all you have to do is show up 9am on Saturday and take part and do your part on behalf of Earth Day. We have a pretty interesting Earth Day event happening that wasn’t really planned this way. It just turned out that way. It’s the restoration of a large sea grass meadow right off the Key West that was destroyed several years ago by a ferry boat. The ferry boat leaving Key West grounded, and it tore up a huge area of sea grass and it just so happens that that project is kicking off next week, at the same time Earth Day is being celebrated. So, being a public relations guy, I’m going to tie those two things together, right? But it’s also heads up for anyone who’s in a vessel, mariners coming out of Key West northwest channel. You’re going to see the work taking place there for about a month. There can be barges out there, people out there, very large area, 100 cubic yards of P rock that’s going to be dropped in there, and then the restoration of the sea grass that’s going to be harvested nearby. Then I want to say it’s thousands of sea grass shoots that will be put there and get that process going and restoring the sea grass it was destroyed. The big mistake that that captain made on the ferry boat was that he grounded, and then he tried to power off and we can all do our part. If we’re driving a vessel on the water. If you ever ground, that’s the last thing you should do is try to power off. Call someone, call C toe, get others involved, to make decisions on how to best get your vessel off the bottom without destroying more of the sea grass or coral, and the sea grass is such a vital habitat and a nursery for so many of the species that we rely upon, and the Florida Keys is home to one of the largest sea grass meadows in the world, and we just need to be cognizant of that and keep it safe.”
For more information, click here: https://floridakeys.noaa.gov/