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Harbor dredging project begins
BY TIMOTHY O'HARA
keysnews.com
KEY WEST — A
company hired by the Navy to dredge the shipping channel from the reef
to the Outer Mole Pier began work Friday, despite a legal challenge by
the operator of the Turtle Hospital in Marathon, who wants stricter
protocols directed at protecting sea turtles.
The New
Orleans-based Bean Stuyvesant will spend the next 18 months removing
819,000 cubic yards of rock and silt from the channel to drop the
channel bottom back to 34 feet, Navy officials said. The project will
cost roughly $36 million.
The hopper
dredger used in the project arrived Friday morning and workers were
surveying the area, Navy spokeswoman Kelly Hinchey said. The company
started dredging four to six miles offshore Friday afternoon, with
workers moving south, Hinchey said.
Turtle
advocate Ritchie Moretti is asking that a fishing trawler be placed in
front of the hopper dredger to scoop up or move turtles out of the way,
so they won't be sucked up into the dredger and chopped into pieces.
Moretti filed a letter Tuesday that spells out his intentions to sue the
Department of Commerce, National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers and U.S. Navy for violating the federal Endangered
Species Act. The letter is required before Moretti can file a lawsuit
against the government.
Navy officials
have refused to use a trawler, stating that they have conducted
environmental studies and done what is required in their permit from the
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration Marine Fisheries. The permit calls for dredging to stop
in the event of the death of three loggerheads, one Kemp's Ridley or one
green turtle.
Green turtles
are on the federal endangered species list and loggerheads are on the
threatened species list, Moretti said. Last year, there were only four
nests of sea turtle eggs laid in Key West. If there are two or three
nesting turtles, they could be the killed in the dredging, he said.
Moretti said he is willing to pay $3,500 out of his own pocket toward
chartering a trawler.
tohara@keysnews.com
Dredging agitates turtle activist
BY STACY WILLITS
keysnews.com
KEY WEST —
Turtle advocate Richie Moretti said Saturday that a contractor hired by
the Navy to dredge a nearby shipping channel violated its permit by
opening up its turtle-parts filtering screens at least once, but a Navy
environmental spokesman denied the charge.
Moretti, who's
been trying to get an injunction to stop the dredging project that
extends from the reef to Key West Harbor, rented a helicopter for $3,500
to look over the work from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, taking with him a
freelance NBC-affiliate Channel 6 cameraman and a Citizen photographer.
Moretti, who
founded the only state-certified vet hospital for sea turtles, said the
footage shows the screens making grid marks in the water, and then the
marks disappear, indicating they were opened.
"Their permit
says they're supposed to have 100 percent inflow filtering," Moretti
said. "Their dredge must have plugged up with coral, so they opened up
the screen, and water just flooded in.
"While we were
watching, they violated the permit. If they had killed a turtle right
then, they wouldn't have even known about it," he said.
But Ben
Nelson, the Navy's regional environmental spokesman, said Moretti was
incorrect. Nelson, contacted by phone in Jacksonville, said New
Orleans-based dredging contractor Bean Stuyvesant is using the inflow
screens exactly as specified in the permit. He also said all required
environmental measures are being implemented. "One-hundred percent of
the material is being filtered, as per the permit," he said.
The dredging
permit, issued by the Army Corps of Engineers, calls for the work to
stop if it kills three of the threatened species of loggerhead turtles,
or one of the endangered Kemp's Ridley or green turtles. Moretti had
offered to pay $3,500 of his own money to charter a trawler to go in
front of the hopper dredger to move turtles and keep them from being
sucked up into the dredger and chopped into pieces.
The Navy's Web
site outlining the project says if the work has to stop, a risk
assessment will be conducted. If officials determine the risk is
acceptable, dredging will continue, the site says.
The Army Corps
of Engineers, which is overseeing the project, consulted with National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Fisheries scientists and agreed to use a "turtle
deflector." The device is similar to a cow catcher on the front of an
old train. The group also has spotters on board the boat looking for
turtles.
Nelson said
Moretti's trawler idea wasn't a good one.
"I'm not an
expert, but I can tell you what the experts told me," Nelson said. "They
said that using a trawler, with those nets, would not protect all the
marine resources. There's a reason we're not using the trawler option —
and it's not fiscal. Those nets can catch onto the coral, damage sea
vegetation and kill the bycatch, the fish that are out there.
"The Navy is
interested in protecting all marine life. This is an important,
expensive project, and we've implemented all measures to protect all
forms of sea life."
When his
trawler plan was rejected, Moretti took another tack. "So since I was
going to spend $3,500 anyway on a trawler, I just spent it on renting a
helicopter instead," Moretti said.
Channel 6
aired the footage shot from the helicopter Saturday in its 6 p.m. news
broadcast. The news anchor said that the dredging in Key West had begun
and some environmentalists were concerned about marine life.
Nelson said
what Moretti did Saturday was very dangerous. "Flying a [helicopter] 30
to 50 feet above a dredger with oxygen tanks on it, doing a very
delicate procedure, it made for a very unsafe environment. Here's the
ship's captain, already having to work this big machine that, if you
veer at all, can be dangerous, now he's having to worry about this
[helicopter] overhead."
Nelson said he
talked to the Army Corps of Engineers, and that a report on the
helicopter's maneuvers will be filed with the Coast Guard and the
Federal Aviation Authority.
Nelson said
the Navy has held meetings with the community, environmental group Last
Stand, the Rotary, and conducted interviews with TV, radio and
newspapers for more than a year in an effort to explain the dredging
plan. "Only one person in two-plus years has expressed any concern
whatsoever," he said. "That person is Mr. Moretti.
"Our intention
is not to kill turtles or hurt the reef," Nelson said. "We respect Mr.
Moretti and his efforts with the turtles, but we want people to know
that the Navy is concerned that all marine life is protected."
Bean
Stuyvesant will spend the next 18 months removing 819,000 cubic yards of
rock and silt from the 6-mile Key West channel to lower it back to 34
feet, Navy officials said. The project will cost roughly $36 million.
The hopper dredger Eagle I arrived in Key West Friday morning and
started dredging four to six miles offshore, moving south, Navy
spokeswoman Kelly Hinchey said.
Hopper
dredgers suck up sand, rock and other debris from the sea floor and chop
the material into smaller pieces. The vessels can do the same to sea
turtles, Moretti said. The hopper dredger is to be used in the first
couple weeks of the dredging program.
The channel
was last dredged in 1965, and since then, tons of silt and rock have
collected in the channel. The silt can smother and kill coral and has
been known to limit diving visibility if stirred up by cruise ships and
other large vessels.
The project is
designed to support the Homeland Security Department's plans for port
security and bringing in large military ships to replace training
missions ended in Vieques, Puerto Rico. |
