Wednesday, October 28, 2009

FLAMINGO -- Heeding the suggestion of a cross section of Florida Bay users, Everglades National Park expects to turn Snake Bight into a pole/troll zone in about a year.

"The idea was that we could learn something and we needed some protection anyway, so why not go ahead with it," Dave Hallac, the park's chief biologist, said in an interview last week.

Hallac stressed that the plan is not yet a done deal. The park is scheduling meetings in the Keys and Miami-Dade County with groups of Florida Bay stakeholders over the next several weeks and will also open a 30-day public comment period in the coming months.

But if all goes according to plan, some 8,000 acres of Snake Bight, a famed fishing flat located two nautical miles to the east of the park's Flamingo visitor area, will be closed off to combustible motors for a three-year trial run.

The move stems out of the ongoing development of a new Everglades National Park General Management Plan, which will guide park governance for the next three decades.

Last summer, park officials floated a series of proposals in which portions of Florida Bay's shallow flats and fragile seagrass communities would be protected through a series of pole/troll zones.

Some interest groups, notably boating and fishing organizations, objected to many of the proposed no-motor areas. But there was a general consensus that Snake Bight would be a good place to test out the concept.

Under the park service proposal, boats could enter the no-motor zone from Tin Can Channel on the south and Snake Bight Channel on the west.

More conveniently, Jimmy's Lake, which extends about a mile from the south into central Snake Bight, would be managed as a no-wake zone, cutting into the distance that fishermen would have to pole or troll.

Jim Trice, who has been a key player in Alternative E, a group of Upper Keys anglers that has sought to influence the general management plan process, praised the park for the Snake Bight plan.

"I am really delighted. They really did their homework," he said. "They listened a lot to constituency groups."

The environmental community also gave the Snake Bight proposal a thumbs up.

"I think everybody is anxious to move as quick as possible," said Jason Bennis, marine programs manager for the South Florida office of the National Parks Conservation Association.

Public support is just one reason park officials are looking to Snake Bight to test out the no-motor zone concept, Hallac said. The area is also an ideal starting point because of its convenient location to Flamingo, making the area easier to police with rangers.

Since Flamingo is a central entry point for northern Florida Bay boaters, the location will also provide park staff more opportunities to educate anglers.

Plans call for the Snake Bight pilot project to be monitored for its enforceability as well as its effectiveness in reducing prop scarring and enhancing the fishing experience.

The General Management Plan is scheduled to be finalized in 2012.

rsilk@keysnews.com