New rules limit recreational use of Tortugas National Park
BY MANDY BOLEN
keysnews.com

In order to protect the natural marine and land-based ecosystems at the increasingly popular Dry Tortugas National, the National Park Service is imposing restrictions it believes will limit the negative impacts of humans on the park's resources and wildlife.

Residents of the Florida Keys are forever seeking to balance progress with protection, access with environmental health. Now that search for balance has stretched far beyond the end of the Keys to the cluster of islands that makes up Dry Tortugas National Park, about 70 miles west of Key West.

In order to protect the natural marine and land-based ecosystems at the increasingly popular Dry Tortugas, the National Park Service two years ago began the lengthy process of amending the park's management plan to limit the negative impacts humans have on the park's resources and wildlife.

Designated as a national park in 1992, the area is popular with scuba divers, snorkelers, boaters and recreational fishermen, and is also home to Fort Jefferson National Monument, an 1846 structure used as a military prison during the Civil War.

Since 1984, the number of visitors to the park leaped from 18,000 to 84,000, leading the park service and environmental groups to begin the process that would limit negative human impacts and protect the environment.

The lengthy process required to change the management plan included several public comment periods, during which concerned residents and business owners could voice their opinions about the proposed changes in person at public forums or via fax, telephone, letter or e-mail.

A new plan was approved in July of 2000, but the changes and restrictions it includes have not yet been implemented, pleasing some whose livelihoods or recreational pastimes will be adversely affected by new restrictions, but disappointing environmental advocates who want to see protection measures firmly in place as soon as possible.

The new plan allows for only one commercial ferry to offer trips to the park, and only one seaplane service. It also designates about half of the 100-acre area as a research natural area zone, where recreational fishing is prohibited and other boaters must have a permit to enter and must tie up to designated mooring buoys. No form of anchoring will be permitted in the research natural area zone, and visitors on land will be part of guided, small-group tours rather than permitted to meander through the park themselves.

Sonny Eymann owns one of the two ferry services that offer daily trips from Key West to the Dry Tortugas, and has been following the amendment process since the beginning.

"The new plan will put one or both of us out of business," he said, referring to the Yankee Freedom ferry service and the new limit of one ferry boat to the park.

The park service will only award one concession contract for ferry service, and will also require that company to provide guided tours to its passengers at the park. Ferries must also provide restroom facilities while their passengers are at the park in order to relieve stress on the park's treatment facilities.

Eymann expects the park service to issue a request for bids sometime this year, but also pointed out that the concession contract might not even be awarded to Sunny Days or Yankee Freedom. An outside company with no history in the Keys could receive the contract, thereby severely crippling two local businesses.

"This will not be beneficial to the public," he said, also adding that private boaters, who will now need a permit to enter the park's water, will also become agitated by the restrictions.

The park management plan acknowledges the adverse effect of the limited ferry service on business owners who are not awarded the concession contract, but states that "several new job opportunities with the concessioners would be anticipated, which would add income that would offset the lost income from current operators that do not get the contract."

The plan also acknowledges that a carrying capacity limit on planes and ferries could limit the growth of a company, but "the National Park Service feels that these impacts are by far offset by the beneficial impacts on the resources and visitor experience."

Tim Taylor operates a liveaboard dive boat that often spend several days at the Dry Tortugas.

"The new plan is going to restrict access to certain areas of the park for me," Taylor said. "But most of the good diving is outside the park's boundaries."

But Taylor is concerned that the National Park Service will eventually try to limit the number of dive boats in the area by only issuing a limited number of concession contracts.

"I'm really concerned about the government taking freedoms away," he said. "With one stroke of the pen, one or both of the ferry services could be out of business."

In contrast, many environmental groups such as the Ocean Conservancy and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary have expressed support of the restrictions and at some of the public forums, individuals and groups expressed a desire for more severe limits that, they said, would further protect the park, the coral reef and the fish populations.

"The research natural area is a really important piece of the plan," said Nancy Klingener, Florida Keys program manager for the Ocean Conservancy. "It goes a long way to making the Dry Tortugas a true ocean wilderness."

But no one seems to know when all the changes will take place.

"We're gradually getting there," said Rick Cook, a spokesman for the National Park Service, although he was not sure exactly when certain restrictions will be enforced. "Efforts are underway to begin to look at the scope of the concessions contract, and we're also looking at the issue of installing boundary buoys and mooring buoys."

In the meantime, everyone waits.
mbolen@keysnews.com

Highlights of approved plan for Dry Tortugas National Park:

* Roughly half will become a research natural area zone, which means no recreational fishing, no anchoring, required use of mooring buoys for private and six-pack charter boats, and required permits for recreational boaters. (Commercial fishing is already totally banned..BJ)

* Group size for snorkeling and diving with commercial guides in the research natural area zone will be limited to six people.

* A maximum number of visitors to some specific sites may be enforced by park officials.

* No overnights are permitted aboard boats inside the research natural area zone.

* A reservation system for the park's campground will be instituted.

* Only one concession contract will be issued for ferry service, with a maximum of 150 people per day.

* The approved ferry service will also be responsible for providing transportation and guided tours within the park.

* Only one concession contract will be issued for seaplane service with a maximum of 60 people per day.

* Visitors will be required to pay a park entrance fee.

* Guided tours of the park will replace individual exploration, and will be conducted in small groups.

* Park personnel will monitor areas for behavior inappropriate for environmental health.