A Pelican Bay board voted unanimously Wednesday to oppose a Collier County plan to install navigational markers in an estuary on the neighborhood’s western edge.
The county has applied for state and federal permits to install 28 markers from outside Clam Pass to the Seagate neighborhood, citing the need to come into compliance with a 1998 permit that authorized a mangrove restoration project.
The Pelican Bay Services Division board, a semi-autonomous arm of county government, disputes that it is in violation of the permit. The board contends the signs will mar the aesthetics of the quiet estuary and create unsafe conditions by encouraging motorboats to share shallow waters frequented by kayakers and beachgoers.
Board members directed administrator John Petty to put their opposition in writing to Collier County commissioners and County Manager Jim Mudd in hopes of stopping the plan in its track.
That would be fine with other marker plan opponents beyond Pelican Bay’s borders.
Residents from Pine Ridge, East Naples and Vanderbilt Beach joined the ranks of a half-dozen opponents who spoke out at Wednesday’s meeting at a Pelican Bay community center.
Pelican Bay resident David Roellig and Conservancy of Southwest Florida environmental science co-director Kathy Worley questioned the wisdom of placing markers in the mouth of a pass with shifting sands. “You put markers out there, sooner or later they’re going to be on the beach,” Worley said. She said some sort of signs to keep boaters in the channel makes sense but navigational markers are another issue. Roellig predicted that navigational markers would encourage overdredging of the pass to keep the channel fixed in place and would lead to coastal engineering problems.
Nobody spoke in support of the marker plan, but a leading proponent sent two e-mails Wednesday to county commissioners and state and federal officials lambasting Pelican Bay’s position.
Raia cited National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration publications that say Clam Pass was reported as non-navigable in 1982, is a “shoal drainage canal” and that boaters need local knowledge to traverse it. The U.S. Coast Guard and the state Department of Environmental Protection classify Clam Bay as a navigable waterway. It is legal for motorized boats to use Clam Bay as long as they travel at idle speed, according to county law.
The county plan would install 15 red triangles and 13 green squares from the Gulf of Mexico into Clam Pass, along a winding channel to Clam Bay and then south, under the boardwalk to Clam Pass park, to the Seagate neighborhood.
The DEP permit that authorizes the mangrove restoration project requires signs to be installed at five spots in Clam Bay that designate the area as idle speed/no wake and caution boaters to tilt their motors up to avoid prop dredging and damage to natural resources.
Some of the signs were put up without the required permits, and now, the signs are running up against permitting hurdles. Pelican Bay has installed signs marking a canoe trail through Clam Bay but questions have arisen about whether the trail has been properly maintained.
The navigational markers are a provision of a Clam Bay management plan that is attached to the federal permit for the mangrove project.
The plan says: “Finally, the main channel will be marked with the requirements imposed by the U.S. Coast Guard to insure that those who use the system clearly know where the channel is and the prohibitions against operating their watercraft outside the same.”
Source: Naplesnews.com
Contact Larry & Mary Catherine White Pelican Bay Luxury Specialists
View Pelican Bay Luxury Homes For Sale
Info@NaplesLuxuryEstates.com
No comments:
Post a Comment