Four days before Treasure Coast residents planned to converge on Tallahassee en masse to protest Lloyd Bell’s plan to expand cargo operations at the Port of Fort Pierce, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection withdrew the item from Tuesday’s cabinet meeting. Opponents of the port project say they’re somewhat relieved, but point out that DEP’s eleventh-hour maneuvering reflects just how hot this political potato is.

Bell wants to operate a commercial cargo facility on the 67 acres he owns at the port, and is seeking a submerged land lease from the state. Ships with an average length of 225 feet would frequent the facility. According to DEP spokesman Stephan Webster, DEP studies indicate that the port facility would have only a “nominal” impact on the Indian River Lagoon. But Grant Gilmore, the foremost expert on Treasure Coast fishes and fish habitats profoundly disagrees, and he’s hardly alone.

“Increased shipping activity is inherently incompatible with seagrass meadow health as demonstrated in other port ecosystems around Florida. The limited area for shipping activity in the Fort Pierce Inlet harbor indicates a potential increase in port and seagrass interaction at this location if shipping activity increases,” he said, in an email to Webster.

In 1990-92, Gilmore and Dr. Dennis Hanisak, a scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, mapped the seagrass beds inside Fort Pierce Inlet. Gilmore is supplying DEP with the study. The seagrass beds inside the inlet are extensive and healthy. Seagrasses are one component of a suit of essential fish habitats that are imperative if reef fish such as snappers, groupers and grunts are to survive to adulthood, and take up residence on offshore reefs.

The grassflats inside the inlet are in close proximity to mangroves and nearshore reefs. Most mutton snappers and gag groupers, for example, settle as tiny juveniles first in the seagrass, then move to the mangroves and then out to the nearshore reefs north and south of the inlet before finally venturing out to the offshore reefs as they mature. A number of studies show that the biomass of reef fish such as snappers and groupers is substantially higher on offshore reefs when each type of this triad of juvenile-stage habitats is adjacent or nearly adjacent to the others. Of course, seagrasses also provide essential habitat for both juvenile and adult drums, tarpon, snook and many other gamefish species, as well as myriad forage sources.

The Indian River Lagoon is North America’s most biologically diverse estuary, and it supports fisheries worth billions. The primary threat to the Indian River Lagoon seagrasses from cargo ship operations is sedimentation. Deep-draft vessels stir up the bottom as they maneuver in and out of the port, and the sediment smothers the grasses. Other threats include the introduction of exotic organisms, but water pollution from bilges, heads and bottom paint is a primary concern for those who swim, surf and dive on the sandbar inside the inlet, at the Fort Pierce North Jetty Park, at South Beach, and on the reefs north and south of the inlet.

What bothers Indian Riverkeeper Kevin Stinnette the most about this port project, is that DEP isn’t considering the cumulative and cascading impacts of all the other “insults” that the Treasure Coast has been slapped with since the Hurricanes of 2004. These include: more than 500 billion gallons of nutrient-laden runoff from Lake Okeechobee; a shoreline armoring project along 13 miles of the IRL that damaged seagrass meadows and beaches along its entire span; a St. Lucie County dune restoration project that resulted in the siltation of nearshore reefs; and a “beach nourishment” project in Martin County that placed mud or materials that are abrading into carbonate mud into the system.

“The port project might be the proverbial last straw for the southern end of the lagoon, and for our snapper/grouper fisheries,” said Stinnette.

In his email to Webster, Gilmore also pointed out that “Seagrass meadows in this inlet support a very diverse ichthyofauna that is the most diverse in the United States compared to similar habitats and seagrass meadow size elsewhere in Florida. Since recent nearly total extirpation of the seagrass meadows in the St. Lucie Inlet area {by the St. Lucie discharges}, it is very important that there be no negative impacts on Fort Pierce Inlet seagrass systems as one of our few remaining viable ocean inlet seagrass meadows.”

Moreover, the impacts likely won’t occur only on grassflats adjacent to the port. “Fort Pierce Inlet also provides the greatest tidal exchange compared to any of the Indian River Lagoon inlets, indicating that any pollutants increased in the Fort Pierce Harbor area will have a greater upstream influence than other lagoon inlets,” Gilmore said.

The Florida cabinet, chaired by the Governor, has the power to deny Bell the submerged land lease. The ultimate decision is up to the cabinet. Opponents point out that there are many other ways for Bell to use his waterfront property in a profitable manner, but Bell has threatened to sue anyone who opposes the cargo port.

Many powerful interests remain un-intimidated. The City of Fort Pierce and the St. Lucie County Commission vehemently oppose the port project. They are joined by nearly every environmental group in the state, including the St. Lucie Waterfront Council, Indian Riverkeeper, the Florida Wildlife Federation and the Surfrider Foundation. Fishing clubs, such as the Fort Pierce club, have sent the governor letters citing the environmental reasons for their opposition

“Anyone that cares about fishing, marine life or clean water to swim in needs to call or write Senator Pruitt, the Governor and the members of the Florida Cabinet,” said Bill Hearn, of the St. Lucie Waterfront Council.