Larger ships sailing around troubled reefs and into the Key West harbor will be allowed for the next quarter century under an expanded lease deal approved by Gov. Ron DeSantis and his cabinet on Tuesday.
The deal, greenlit by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, comes in the wake of an unprecedented ocean heat wave that bleached coral throughout the Keys and amid growing evidence that sediment churned up by ships damages reefs.
The unanimous vote was approved without discussion in just over a minute.
READ MORE: Scientists racing to save coral from bleaching are running out of space
In its recommendation, FDEP concluded expanding the lease space another 58,600 square feet to allow larger ships would be good for the economy without causing any environmental harm. But critics question how that determination could be made without a new environmental study. The larger space, they say, will allow ships 50% larger.
“The decision today [and] the lack of real regulatory performance by DEP really clearly demonstrates why we need federal oversight of clean water issues in Florida,” said Arlo Haskell, a board member at the nonprofit Safer Cleaner Ships, which opposed the expansion. “We have a regulatory agency that is not regulating.”
The expansion is the latest skirmish over cruise ships sailing to the four-square mile island at the tip of Florida.
After the pandemic shut down cruise traffic, residents and activists convinced the city council to permanently limit the number of passengers flooding the island to 1,500 a day. But DeSantis and lawmakers overturned those rules. In 2022, Safer Cleaner Ships and other activists convinced the council to pass a new rule: only one ship a day is now allowed to dock at the historic harbor.
This new lease comes after a wave of complaints over bigger ships that exceeded the boundary limits spelled out in a decades-old lease.
In response, DEP granted Pier B Development Corp. and president Mark Walsh, a temporary lease in June 2023 that expanded boundaries to accommodate the bigger ships.
Reef, seagrass and endangered species
In recommending full approval of the new lease, DEP officials noted that the expansion would not lead to worse water quality or harm any habitat or rare species. In the Keys, that includes the largest remnants of Florida’s reef tract, miles of seagrass meadows and endangered species including coral, sea turtles and manatees. The area is also home to sawfish, now undergoing a mysterious die-off. Since January, 27 of the rare fish have been found dead in Key West and around the Lower Keys.
A Florida International University study comparing water quality before and during the pandemic also found vast improvements in water quality with no cruise traffic. Turbidity and stirred up sediment that can block sunlight significantly decreased south of Key West and on the reef in 2020 compared to the previous 24 years, according to the report by Henry Briceno's Water Quality Monitoring Lab.
"What is interesting is that small improvements in turbidity ... swiftly cascade into observable changes in water quality perceived by Keys neighbors, and surely by the rich biota of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary," the report said.
Those kind of impacts were anticipated more than 20 years ago when the state granted an original lease for cruise ship docking at the slip, Haskell said.
“The original lease was issued hand-in-hand with an environmental resource permit, which was very focused,” he said, and specifically looked at potential damage to bottom habitat around the shallow islands. "That permit says expansion of the lease is not authorized. So it's baffling to me.”
The Lower Keys Guides Association also opposed the expansion and in a letter to Cabinet members this week, reminded them that it had already fought twice to remove state preemption laws that overturned home rule. The group said DEP officials have not inspected the docks since 2019, despite complaints from guides and Safer Cleaner Ships about harms caused by sediment spread by ships.
“The original lease was issued hand-in-hand with an environmental resource permit [that] says expansion of the lease is not authorized. So it's baffling to me.”Arlo Haskell, of nonprofit Safer Cleaner Ships
They also worry that the ocean heat wave and worsening conditions spurred by ship traffic may have triggered the unusual behavior spotted in sawfish and other species this fall, including tarpon and snook that draw anglers from around the world.
As part of Tuesday's deal, Walsh agreed to donate $50,000 a year for the term of the lease to Mote Marine Lab, which operates a coral nursery at his resort hotel in Key Largo.
Mote also operates a reef research lab on Summerland as part of a growing effort to breed and replant coral on reefs in a race to restore the dwindling reefs. Scientists say the work is not meant to save the reef, but give it a lifeline until rising global temperatures and impacts from pollution can be brought under control.
“There was a bumper sticker when I was growing up, ‘Protect What’s Left,’” he said. “It’s sad because there's so little of it left. But first and foremost, anybody that sets out to protect the environment ought to actually be protecting it, not allowing it to be further injured.”
