Seagrass Protection at Cockroach Bay Yields Diverging Proposals

By Mary Kelley Hoppe

A task force of boaters, environmentalists and government officials is pushing ahead to advance one of five options for a “pole and troll” zone in Little Cockroach Bay, despite opposition from three government agencies.

All five options would require either shrinking the existing manatee protection area or providing higher-speed access corridors through sections of the slow-speed zone, established to protect slow-moving manatees from boat propellers. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have called the options unacceptable.

Seagrass beds in Cockroach Bay, which runs from the Little Manatee River near Ruskin down to the Manatee County line, have been heavily scarred by boat propellers. Aerial photography has documented upwards of 30,000 prop scars north of the boat ramp; damage to the south, which is shallower, is unquantified.

“A lot of the rationale is yes it’s an existing manatee protection zone and yes it’s slow speed minimum wake but the reality is that there’s no one there to enforce it,” says Tom Ash of the Environmental Protection Commission of Hillsborough County. “The argument is if you can get one of those five options in place, the boating community is more likely to comply.”

Without enforcement of existing slow-speed zones, the chances of gaining compliance are negligible, says Danny Guarino, a commercial fishing guide who chaired the task force.

“It’s my feeling that to get compliance from the users, we have to allow access to these areas, and if we gain more compliance we’ll get more protection for the manatees and the seagrasses,” Guarino says.

Guarino favors limited access through corridors that would allow faster access into the protected area. “We want to make the fishing better. We can make fishing better if we can get folks to quit running up and down the grass beds.”

Guarino is planning to meet with members of the Hillsborough County Commission and the EPC to explain their position with the hope of convincing state regulators that the proposal is actually more protective of manatees and seagrasses.

“Right now it doesn’t seem like anyone wants to budge,” Guarino says.

Alternate Proposal Calls For County Park

Meanwhile, two local leaders are campaigning for a county park that would celebrate the heritage of the area and consolidate authority for the Cockroach Bay area under Hillsborough County.

Ruskin crabber Gus Muench had been fishing the waters of Cockroach Bay for years until he recognized the damage to seagrasses from boats that plowed through the shallow flats and decided to stop crabbing the area. He is a vocal and longstanding advocate for establishing a no-motor zone to protect the sensitive fishing grounds from further abuse.

Muench says the task force’s proposal “will never fly because no permitting agency is going to allow high-speed corridors through a manatee zone, and on top of that is the liability issue of marking a corridor through such a shallow area.”

Gus wants pole and troll from the Manatee line to Ruskin, adding the high-speed access corridors will only increase prop scarring in already-shallow corridors.

Muench and Fred Jacobsen, president of the Ruskin Community Foundation, are advocating for the establishment of a county park that honors the first known natives of the region, the Uzita Indians, while bringing environmentally sensitive areas under a single entity.

Historians originally thought that Hernando DeSoto landed at the Manatee River, but now believe he landed at Piney Point near Cockroach Bay. “We want to emphasize that the Uzita Indians lived there for hundreds of years, lived off the bounty, and here we come as newcomers and we’re destroying Cockroach Bay,” says Muench. Cockroach Bay also is the site of the famed Leisey Shell Pits, where a 1983 discovery by paleontologist Frank Garcia unearthed 140 prehistoric animals including 10 new to science.

“We want a low-impact eco-friendly park with no-motor zones,” says Muench. “The photos clearly show the damage to seagrasses and the number of boats coming to these areas are going to continue to cause prop scars.”
Some prop scars are as long as 200 yards, other cuts are smaller, but all will take years to heal.

Muench also wants to do away with the exemption that allows fishing guides to travel 20 mph through slow-speed zones set up to protect manatees, but that also increase seagrass damage from prop scars.

While there are no funds for a new county park in the budget, Muench believes user fees for boat trailers and the addition of private vendors renting kayaks and canoes can help offset those costs.

“I think we’ll eventually sell it – we don’t have a choice,” he says.

“On top of that, once you combine the area (under one management entity) you have an opportunity to attract big-name funders,” Muench adds. Creating a park would require an agreement between various agencies including the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Southwest Florida Water Management District, the Tampa Port Authority and Hillsborough County to cede authority to the county.

"If we can create a low-impact area for canoes and kayaks that protects the seagrasses and manatees and also celebrates the heritage of the region, we have an opportunity to create something really special,” according to Muench.

Muench and Jacobsen have created Friends of the Uzita Heritage Park to gain support for establishing a county park.

Guarino says concessions are needed to make any proposal palatable to boaters and get better compliance in an area where regulations are routinely ignored. “From a user standpoint, all we’re seeing is that they want to close another area,” he says. “I’d rather give up a 100-yard swath of seagrasses for a corridor to access the area. People will chew up a lot less grass.”

“The park concept is not a bad idea,” says Guarino, "but the devil is in the details.”

The task force has been meeting for two years. “ I’d love to see some kind of resolution to this by the end of the year, but if it takes a little longer to get it right, I would prefer to do that,” said Ash.