To move forward with the dredging of Hudson Channel, the county must agree to restrict boating in 218 acres of meadows.
By BRIDGET HALL GRUMET
Published September 9, 2003
HUDSON - Ronnie Whitaker tells the story of a boater he towed back to shore three weeks ago, after the boater veered into a rocky oyster bar instead of the Hudson Channel.
"He was coming in at dark," Whitaker said Monday at the Hudson Beach boat ramp, where a kind breeze offered reprieve from the early afternoon sun. "He tore out the whole bottom of his boat and the foot of both engines."
But it could have been worse: "You can literally lose your life hitting the rocks," said Whitaker, a recreational fisherman.
That's why Whitaker and some other boaters aren't fazed by a proposal to set up "seagrass protection zones" along the Hudson Channel. The five patches (totaling 218 acres) would be offlimits to propeller and jet drive watercraft as mitigation for the 7.7 acres of seagrass that will be uprooted during the upcoming Hudson Channel dredging project.
Fine by Whitaker, who said the shallow, rocky areas are dangerous for boaters and water scooters anyway.
"It's not going to affect the boaters," said Whitaker, who lives in Trinity but is buying a house in Hudson. "It's going to affect the people who have no business being out there."
The County Commission will get its first glimpse today at a proposed ordinance that would create the offlimit areas. The seagrass meadows provide food and habitat for a range of fish, shrimp and even manatees.
The meeting starts at 1:30 p.m. at the Historic Courthouse in Dade City.
Commissioners will decide whether to set an Oct. 21 public hearing to discuss and vote on the ordinance. But they have little choice if they want the 2.1-mile dredging project to move forward.
The first condition of the dredging permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers states - in underlined words, no less - that "No dredging or excavation will be performed . . . unless and until the Board of County Commissioners establish a 218-acre Seagrass Protection Zone" and related rules.
As part of the plan, the county must provide patrols for five years at a total cost of $200,000 to make sure boaters stay out of the seagrass zones.
The dredging project has been two decades in the making, with the county finally receiving the necessary permits in June from the corps and the state Department of Environmental Protection.
The county plans to dredge about 46,109 cubic yards of dirt from the 40-foot-wide channel, enough to make it about 5 feet deep. As it is now, the channel can be as shallow as 2 feet at low tide, forcing shrimpers and recreational boaters to carefully time their trips.
About half of the $2.1-million dredging tab is covered by a $1.08-million DEP grant. The county will pay for the rest.
County Commissioner Peter Altman expressed one concern about the project in July, however. The plan calls for sending the dredged dirt to Belcher Mine, and Altman wants assurances that won't damage the clear water at the mine.
A county-hired firm, Case O'Bourke Engineering Inc., said the dirt should not permanently affect the water quality of the old mine pits, county engineer Jim Widman wrote in an Aug. 28 memo.
And the alternatives - sending the mud to the county's Embassy Wastewater Treatment Plant or the county's Resource Recovery Facility in Shady Hills - would add another $440,136 to $516,602 to the project, Widman wrote in the memo.
Widman said looking for a new disposal site could delay the project and put the DEP funding in jeopardy, but Altman said he wants more information before moving forward.
"One thing is for sure: It's taken us a long time to get to this point," Altman said Monday.
"Even when we give the green light and begin the process, they will have to establish their equipment out in the gulf . . . and I certainly believe there's adequate time for us to get the assurances we need to have without causing a delay to the project."
- Bridget Hall Grumet covers Pasco County government. She can be reached in west Pasco at 869-6244, or toll-free at 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6244. Her e-mail address is hall@sptimes.com
If you go
A meeting on the proposed ordinance to create offlimit zones for seagrass protection starts at 1:30 p.m. today at the Historic Courthouse in Dade City.
