Let’s check in with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary

Scott Atwell, communications manager for the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about the sanctuary.

The sanctuary advisory council met yesterday in Marathon.

Atwell said, “The two most comprehensive presentations had to do with our restoration blueprint and the county’s new artificial habitat program. Restoration blueprint, of course, I’m sure your listeners are aware, is the first major update to our regulations in more than a generation, and has been going on for quite a while, probably about 13 years, because it is so comprehensive. One of the questions we get quite often is, why is this thing taking so long? That’s sort of what our policy advisor walked us through yesterday. It is really mind boggling what a federal agency has to do whenever you make changes to regulations. I mean, I jotted down some of the sort of the tracks we have to run when we do this, and it includes things like the Endangered Species Act, the Magnus and Stevenson’s Fishery Conservation Act, the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, National Historical Preservation Act, Coastal Zone Management Act, socioeconomic analysis, state of Florida cooperative management, and then federal agency coordination with organizations like the Office of Management and Budget, Small Business Administration, US Fish and Wildlife, EPA, Department of Interior, Defense Department, Homeland Security, transportation.”

That would be why it has taken so long.

Atwell said, “We’re hoping that restoration blueprint comes out by the end of this year, and when it does, I think the one thing we can say is this will be perhaps the most exhaustive and collaborative product that’s ever been produced with an agency in the Florida Keys. So that’s the good news of it. It has taken a long time, but I think everyone who has a hand in what goes on in the Florida Keys has had a hand in this document. So that’s the good news. The other presentation had to do with the artificial habitat. Of course, the county has about $15 million, the state has given it to deploy artificial habitats, habitat support structures, to enhance fishing, and it looks like by next year, the first of those could be deployed. Yesterday, we got an update on the types of habitats that that they’re looking at, different sizes and shapes, depending on whether it’s bayside or ocean side, and the depth of the water in the habitat that’s there. So it’s pretty interesting stuff. The other thing that we always do at the end of our meetings is get agency partner updates. So this is the people who we really work with closely every day, like the Navy, the Coast Guard, the Department of Environmental Protection, NFWC. You probably have Dave Dupre on your show from time to time, and he gave us an update yesterday on the derelict vessel program and it’s really amazing. They have FWC has three folks who do nothing but the derelict vessel program, and they can get 50 or 60 of them ready to go and get pulled out of the water, all the paperwork, and by the time they get them out, another 50 or 60 or there. I didn’t realize this, it this is a violation. So if you abandon a vessel and it runs a ground and is on the benthic habitat. Obviously, we’re going to find out who it is, and the state attorney is recommending 180 days in jail for those violators. So what Dave said was that pretty soon after that threat, the owners figure out a way to get the boat removed on their own, but it’s amazing the number of vessels that get abandoned on the Florida Keys and cause a problem. I would encourage your listeners, so much great information comes from these meetings every other month is when we have them, we do it at Marathon City Hall. They’re always available online and the members of the sanctuary Advisory Council represent all of the user groups, different types of fishermen, different types of divers, different types of scientists, different types of folks from the tourism industry, and then citizens at large. It’s really a very informative meeting every other month when we have it.”

Sarah Fangman’s last day at the sanctuary will be November 2.

Atwell said, “She’s going to become the West Coast Regional Director for Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. So instead of just one sanctuary, albeit the most complicated sanctuary in the system, she’s going to be overall, six or seven on the West Coast. She’s going to be missed. In the last month or so since the announcement came out, I mean, anyone you run into or who’s interacted with Sarah. It is a universal respect for her, and we got a lot of that yesterday. She’s amazing. She’s going to be missed so much, and she’s just been the perfect person during this period of time when we’re trying to get restoration blueprint through. Her interim successor, Matt Stout, who is the Chief of Staff for Office of National Marine Sanctuaries, is in place now. He was at the meeting yesterday, and one of the things that we did for Sarah, or the county did anyway, she was made yesterday an honorary Conch and so County Commissioner Jim Scholl, who sits on the Advisory Council by virtue of his position, did the presentation, Holly Raschein as mayor signed it, and I think it was a great surprise for Sarah, and indeed worthy that she now is one of us.”

What impact did the recent storms have on operations at the sanctuary?

Atwell said, “We operate under some very strict guidelines from NOAA, and we have a standing order, that all of our vessels will stand down operations when wind is greater than 18 knots and sea states of three to four feet because of the excessive rolling of the vessels, the conditions, the difficulty for scuba divers to get in and out of the vessels under those conditions. So when a storm is on its way, and the seas already begin churning, and then when it passes and they continue to turn in the wake, we lose about a five day window of work for each of these storms. And we’ve had Debbie, we’ve had Helene, we’ve had Milton. So we’ve lost about three weeks of water operations during the summer. Of course, the good news is that the corals, the temperatures are dropped on the corals. But the bad news is that that we lose some work and it’s not that we’re sitting around. We have a small navy of boats in the Upper and Lower Keys. So when those storms come, we have to secure all the boats if they’re remaining in the water and if they’re on land, tying them down, etc. The other problem that we face is we’ve talked about before, we have over 800 buoys that we maintain up and down the Keys for moorings, for boundary markers, and we use some of the best systems in the world with the tackle on those moorings. But Mother Nature is an incredible foe, and those things get lost when the storm passes. We just got word last week one of our 36 inch boundary markers turned up in West Palm Beach and so we haven’t been able to make an assessment of how buoys have been lost this summer with the three storms, but we will, and no doubt they’ll continue to turn up places along east coast, or in a month or two, as we’ve talked about before, they could wind up in Europe, because they get out there in the Gulf Stream and hitch a ride north.”

How did the education and outreach team do this past year?

Atwell said, “We are required to sort of document at the year’s end of the things that took place in our education outreach was incredible this year. We had a great year of reaching more than 2,600 people through presentations to Rotary clubs and other organizations and the various places that we have displays at other museums around the Keys and in our Eco Discovery Center saw more than 25,000 visitors last year, which is an increase year over year, and our we thought we began talking about the sanctuary Advisory Council, that group, in addition to meetings and subcommittees, put in over 1,000 hours this last year. So it has been a great year for outreach and collaboration and interaction with the public, which is important because we manage a very public venue, at the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.”