Palm Beach officials have taken an aggressive stance to enforce state rules that govern where and how boats are allowed to moor and anchor in waters within the town’s jurisdiction.
As the town nears the one-year mark of implementing its Lake Worth Lagoon Management Plan, officials can point to a remarkable reduction in the number of vessels illegally moored or anchored in the Lake Worth Lagoon, which is part of the Intracoastal Waterway.
A big part of the effort involves locating and removing unpermitted buoys and bottom-anchored structures. The town also has moved or towed dozens of boats.
But that effort has alienated boaters who have long considered the lagoon between Palm Beach and West Palm a safe harbor. Some have asked the town to develop its own facilities.
Town officials deserve credit for listening to those concerns. That they’ve paid attention became clear on May 12, when the Town Council voted to approve a budget of $149,402 for a consultant to study if the town can build and manage its own mooring field.
A mooring field would not only benefit boaters. It also might free the town’s police department from having to monitor moored vessels.
Paul Brazil, Palm Beach’s Public Works director, told the council that a town-managed mooring field would give the department more control over which vessels could moor in the waters off Palm Beach.
Town Hall’s ability to operate a mooring field might depend on meeting state and federal requirements for on-shore facilities such as bathrooms, showers, washers and dryers, trash collection and pumps to remove waste from boats.
Given that such measures could help protect the environment while also helping boaters — not to mention generating revenue for the town — makes the feasibility study a sound investment indeed.
Nourishing our neighbors
Palm Beach residents have again stepped up to help their neighbors in Palm Beach County who struggle to obtain sufficient food.
During the 13th annual Town of Palm Beach United Way’s Empty Your Pantry food drive, donors brought in hundreds of bags and boxes of food and contributed $9,000 in cash.
The drive ran from March 29 to April 19 in partnership with the Palm Beach Daily News, Field of Greens and Palm Beach Fire Rescue.
The food drive began more than a decade ago to encourage town residents heading north for the summer months to empty their pantries for their neighbors in need. It has become a recognized part of the effort to feed the hungry in Palm Beach County.
The two nonprofits that benefitted from this year’s drive are Adopt-A-Family, which furnishes apartment-style shelter units with cookware, dishes and flatware, and stocks their shelves with food; and El Sol, the Jupiter neighborhood resource center, which will stock its pantry and kitchen with donated food.
Cash donations also will go to Boca Helping Hands, CROS Ministries, Farmworker Coordinating Council and The Glades Initiative.
The food drive also collected bags of pet food to support the Peggy Adams Animal Rescue League.
Here’s a “thank you” to all of the donors this season, and a hope that next year’s Empty Your Pantry Drive will be an even bigger success.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Daily News: Town makes sound decision to consider mooring field | Editorial
Reporting by Palm Beach Daily News Editorial Board, Palm Beach Daily News / Palm Beach Daily News
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