News-Journal wire services
WASHINGTON -- Vast coral reefs, sea grass meadows and mangrove forests in ocean waters off the Florida Keys are being designated as especially sensitive by the U.S. government.
The United States' first Particularly Sensitive Sea Area -- just the fifth such domain worldwide to gain special protection in accordance with the International Maritime Organization -- is being created in the Florida Straits, where U.S. officials say more than 40 percent of the world's commerce passes each year.
Bush administration officials announced Wednesday the creation of the new protective zone in the Florida Keys, which is part of the world's third largest barrier reef ecosystem and attracts $1.2 billion in tourism dollars annually. Designation of the protected area with international cooperation is intended to reduce damage to the marine environment from large oceangoing ships' anchors, groundings, collisions and pollution.
Starting Dec. 1, captains of ships longer than 164 feet will have to avoid certain areas and cannot drop anchor in three places, Commerce Department officials said. Nautical charts produced worldwide will start showing the zone and its requirements, and ships will be required to carry those updates.
"We want maximum protection for the Florida Keys' corals without disruptions for the flow of commerce," said Sam Bodman, deputy U.S. commerce secretary.
Bodman said obtaining this rare form of international protection required close cooperation between federal resource managers and industry. He said it would make international shippers coming to U.S. waters more aware of the coral reefs but wouldn't crimp trade.
The other four "particularly sensitive" areas are Australia's Great Barrier Reef; Cuba's Sabana-Camaguey Archipelago; Colombia's Malpelo Island; and the Wadden Sea area in Denmark, the Netherlands and Germany.
Waters extending for more than 2,600 square miles will be part of the new zone, an area that stretches from Biscayne National Park to the Tortugas. The zone includes the 2,500-square-mile
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary that Congress and the first President Bush created a dozen years ago, shortly after three large ships in the fall of 1989 ran aground and damaged coral reefs there.
"Our coral reefs are in crisis," Bodman said. "Around the world, nearly 27 percent of our reefs are already gone. And if this alarming trend persists, another two-thirds will be lost within the next 30 years. Simply dropping an anchor with its cables, chains and other attendant equipment can cause severe and permanent damage."
Since 1984, there have been 10 large ship groundings in the area, according to the Commerce Department. Damage to corals has occurred 17 times since 1997 because of what U.S. officials describe as rogue anchoring by large ships or freighters, officials said.
Commerce officials said U.S. shipping interests backed the zone's creation and already were complying with similar protective measures. Billy Causey, superintendent of the Florida Keys' sanctuary, said U.S. law already provides for penalties of up to $100,000 per day per incident for shipping damage to the marine environment, and further damages can be assessed for loss of natural resources.
He said there were three known incidents of large foreign-flagged ships inadvertently dropping anchors in the Tortugas area, destroying coral reefs. The ships' anchors typically weigh 10 to 12 tons and the long chains they are attached to also apart the ocean floor by being dragged back and forth, he said.
Joe Cox, president of the Chamber of Shipping of America, representing 21 U.S.-based shipping companies, said more international cooperation is needed to protect Florida corals.
"If we can see it, we can miss it, because we're not fond of running into things," Cox said.
