Heads should have turned when a recent bill to protect seagrasses passed without a single “no” vote in the House or Senate. Part of the bill would allow law enforcement to fine boaters who gouge delicate seagrass. (See the Online Cast www.floridasportsman.com/casts/080505 for details on the positive aspects of the bill.) Now, the same environmental groups that agreed the bill was a step in the right direction--such as the Florida Wildlife Federation, Ocean Conservancy, Gulf Restoration Network and The Surfrider Foundation--are asking Gov. Charlie Crist to veto it.

"We thought the bill wasn't going anywhere, and then lo and behold this thing gets added on and wham-o, blam-o, you got yourself a bill," said Federation lobbyist Jay Liles to the St. Petersburg Times.

The “thing” Jay Liles is talking about is an amendment added at the end of a four-hour committee meeting by Rep. Will Kendrick (R-Carrabelle). Part of one of the amendments Kendrick added was to allow private companies to create seagrass mitigation banks on state-owned land.

Private companies could then sell their credits to developers who wanted to wipe out flourishing seagrass beds almost anywhere along the coast, in the name of development for a new marina, condo boatlift or boating channel. Seagrasses are vital as habitat for juvenile inshore and offshore fish species.

This bill in its original form made scarring seagrass a criminal offense. Now, the bill allows the destruction of healthy seagrass meadows, pretty much at a developer’s discretion, in the hope that a mitigation bank will make up for the loss of habitat somewhere in the state. Somehow, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission still support the bill.

Editorials printed in the St. Petersburg Times and Pensacola News Journal, as well as letters to the governor's office co-signed by at least 25 Florida environmental and outdoor groups, have called for the veto of bill CS/HB 7059.

A similar mitigation bank for wetlands exists in the state. Partly because of it, some hunters have seen prime bird-hunting wetlands go the way of shopping malls. The wetland mitigation bank, in theory, is a tradeoff—it restores wetlands on private property and then sells the credits to developers. But as a St. Petersburg Times investigation in 2006 found, credits were often given for saving dry land than for anything that helped restore wetlands.