The Town Council has granted initial approval to stricter rules for vessels that anchor or moor in the Lake Worth Lagoon.
Under the proposed rules, most boats will no longer be able to drop anchor for months or years in the part of the lagoon that sits within Palm Beach’s jurisdiction. The town will continue enforcing longstanding rules that require permits for moorings.
The vote at the council’s Oct. 14 meeting was 4-1. Council Member Ted Cooney voted no. A second and final vote will come on Nov. 12.
But the ordinance has received pushback from some boaters and the Palm Beach Sailing Club, which is in West Palm Beach across the lagoon from Palm Beach.
The town’s actions were made possible by HB 481, a law the legislature passed earlier this year and Gov. Ron DeSantis signed in May. It removed state rules that kept local governments from making their own rules for anchoring.
Local officials in counties with a population of 1.5 million or higher — Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach and Hillsborough counties — are now able to more tightly regulate vessels in bodies of water within their jurisdiction.
“This particular ordinance or bill that was passed is the first time in my lifetime that we actually have a tool to control, to some extent, what people do in our waterway,” Council President Bobbie Lindsay said.
The Lake Worth Lagoon between Palm Beach and West Palm Beach is part of the larger Intracoastal Waterway.
With next month’s vote, the council would set in stone rules that say no vessel may anchor overnight for more than 30 days within a consecutive six-month period in waters where Palm Beach has jurisdiction. That would not apply to a number of vessels such as rowboats, kayaks, boats that are not longer than 22 feet and that do not have living accommodations, or to barges, vessels performing marine construction work, and boats that are moored at a permitted mooring field, marina or private dock.
The town also is enforcing longstanding laws that govern the placement of moorings, which connect a locator buoy on the surface of the water to a chain that is embedded into a device permanently installed in the lakebed. Moorings are typically used to provide a more stable point for a vessel to return, instead of having to drop anchor. Florida requires mooring permits. Only one of the moorings currently in the lagoon is permitted, town staff have said.
That enforcement is part of Palm Beach’s Lake Worth Lagoon Management Plan, which police officials announced Aug. 19. The town said the plan is designed to protect and restore seagrass, and that the goal of the new ordinance is to improve the health of the waterway while protecting the health, safety and welfare of Palm Beach residents.
Town police and fire-rescue crews began removing the illegal moorings on Aug. 26, spurring concern from boaters who have long kept their boats in the lagoon south of Peanut Island and the Port of Palm Beach.
Some who pleaded with the council during the Oct. 14 meeting said they paid to have moorings professionally installed and they have kept their boats in the lagoon for years.
Cary St. Onge of Manalapan said he keeps his 80-foot sailing yacht on “a very substantial mooring that I rent from a very reputable company.”
“I have learned that the mooring is illegal, like all but one in the lake,” he said. “If I’m sailing my boat and the town of Palm Beach decides to cut the mooring ball, I will have no mooring to return to. I will be forced to anchor. After 30 days, I will be illegally anchored.”
Anchoring is less safe for the environment and for boats, St. Onge told the council. There is no available dock space nearby, he said, a concern echoed by others who spoke to the council.
After the September council meeting where town officials discussed the proposed rules for anchoring and the stronger enforcement of mooring in the lagoon, the Palm Beach Sailing Club’s leaders looked at the potential effect of Palm Beach’s actions on the club’s membership, said member Elie Edmondson. The organization could lose between 40 and 45 members, which he called “an extinction level event for the club.”
“We made it through the Great Recession in 2008. We made it through COVID,” Edmondson said. “This would probably destroy the club.”
Council members said that the town’s mooring enforcement and the new anchoring rules are not being done to target responsible boaters. The council is “caught between a rock and a hard edge,” Council Member Julie Araskog said.
“Obviously, I want families to be happy, and obviously I want children here, but there has been an issue,” she said. “There has been an issue with pumping out, and there has been an issue with derelict boats.”
The problem, however, would be with what is called “selective enforcement,” or enforcing the rules only for some people and not all, Council Member Bridget Moran said. “It’s all or nothing,” she said.
The cost to remove derelict vessels is high, and there is a circuitous legal and bureaucratic process through which the town must navigate to have a boat removed, Palm Beach Police Lt. Paul Alber said. Thanks to a $250,000 donation from the Palm Beach Police & Fire Foundation that was approved by the council Oct. 14, the town will be able to move a little faster to remove those boats, he said.
Still, there are state rules that will need to be followed, and that process will take time, he said.
The Palm Beach Police Department’s Marine Unit is working to educate boaters in the lagoon about the mooring rules and the upcoming implementation of the anchoring rules, department spokesman Sgt. Michael Ogrodnick told the Palm Beach Daily News on Oct. 16.
People have generally been receptive to the information and officers are “extending grace” where needed, he said.
Ogrodnick provided the example of a boater who was ready to head to the Bahamas, but had to postpone their departure because of the weather. That boater asked and was allowed to remain, he said.
“We’re not going to punish people or hound people like,” Ogrodnick said. “We’re trying to be gracious and make people aware.”
Overall, he said, people are frustrated because they did not realize the moorings are illegal.
That echoed some of the feedback provided by boaters to the council earlier in the week.
The new ordinance excludes people who are able to obtain a permit to moor in the lagoon, said Wellington resident Ed Singer, who told the council that he is working through that permitting process now. For decades, officials looked the other way when it came to unpermitted moorings, he said.
“And now you’re trying to go after something that you know that people are trying to get legal permits, which are very hard to get, and if somebody is successful at getting one … it’s a challenge,” he said, noting that someone who applies for a mooring permit must go through several state and federal agencies.
Council President Pro-Tem Lew Crampton implored the boaters to see the issue from Palm Beach’s perspective: The town recently faced off with Riviera Beach over that city’s proposed mooring field that would have been within Palm Beach’s legal jurisdiction.
As the council and the town fought back against that proposal, that appears to be dead, they heard “all kinds of horror stories about how bad these, more or less, unregulated mooring fields actually are,” Crampton said. “So I think we have to have a responsibility to our residents. We have a responsibility to protect them.”
Kristina Webb is a reporter for Palm Beach Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach her at kwebb@pbdailynews.com. Subscribe today to support our journalism.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Palm Beach grants initial OK to lagoon anchoring rules as boaters share concerns
Reporting by Kristina Webb, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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