Key West Harbor Maintenance Dredging Helped the Environment

Summary

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The dredging that recently took place in Key West Harbor was maintenance work conducted by the U.S. Navy to facilitate military ship operations for national security, as changes in Navy operations in the Gulf and Caribbean resulted in the need for larger, deeper-draft military vessels to use the port. The harbor and entrance channel were originally dredged by the Navy during World War II and the last time it was maintenance-dredged had been in the 1960s. Both fine sediments and larger material had collected in the deeper dredged areas, as will naturally occur over time, and deptbs to which dredging took place restored original conditions.

In addition to the permitting agencies, a large number of agencies participated in the review of these applications, including the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Local environmental groups also participated, including The Ocean Conservancy, Reef Relief and the Nature Conservancy. The maintenance dredging permits contained extensive conditions to protect the surrounding important marine resources of the Florida Keys, including monitoring of turbidity and health of marine life prior to, during and after dredging.

The Sanctuary Advisory Committee (SAC) created the Large Vessel Working Group in October 2002 to study this issue, and the group held its final meeting in February 2004. Participants represented the SAC, including Soiares Hill Editor Nancy Klingener [then working for The Ocean Conservancy], the city, the U.S. Coast Guard, DEP, Reef Relief, sports fishing and commercial diving interests, two cruise lines and the harbor pilots. The group identified a number of issues that were then researched and prioritized. Experts in several fields were brought in to address particular questions. The final findings of the group included a commendation to the Navy and the Corps of Engineers for cooperative planning of the harbor and channel dredging project.

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Extract

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Key West Harbor Maintenance Dredging Helped the Environment

It is important that some factual corrections be made regarding some of the points raised by Mr. Jerrold Weinstock in his commentary run in the June 8 issue of Solares Hill.

The dredging that recently took place in Key West Harbor was maintenance work conducted by the U.S. Navy to facilitate mi...

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