Reefs provide natural buffers and awesome angling.

Many of these consultants and bureaucrats sit on conservation boards. They say the close relationships and partnerships facilitate the permitting process and help ensure better projects. Conservationists, anglers and divers say the dredging industry has become government.

“Agencies are working at cross puposes and individuals from the Corps, DEP and the consultants have clear conflicts of interests,” said Dan Clarke, Director of Cry of the Water, a Broward-based coral monitoring and diving group.

Although the excessive dredging and pumping increasingly incense sportsmen, beachfront property owners demand the projects and some downplay the environmental impacts.

“We’ve been writing letters demanding re-nourishment of the mid-reach section [Brevard County] long before the hurricanes,” said Cliff Dickinson, founder of Salvage Our Shoreline (SOS), a non-profit organization dedicated exclusively to getting a dredge-and-fill project on a nearshore reef system, declared Essential Fish Habitat/Habitat Area of Particular Concern, one with a 15-year history of protection.

“There ain’t a fish in the ocean that can’t live in a little deeper water,” he said. Peer-reviewed studies that refute him include one entitled Nearshore Hardbottom Fishes of Southeast Florida and Effects of Habitat Burial Caused By Dredging. It states, in the contexts of snappers and grunts on the windward side of barrier islands in East Florida, “There are no other natural habitats in the same nearshore areas that can support equivalent abundances of early life stages.”

His team mobilized some condo owners for a county commission meeting, where Commissioner Jackie Colon said she would “crush” anyone who opposed the project.

According to the SOS website, a campaign objective is to, “Identify and publicize the contact information of any potential roadblocks.” A California-based surfing group called Save the Waves went to bat for disenfranchised local surfers, anglers and divers and filed an official letter of complaint about Colon’s language and Salvage Our Shoreline’s tactics. Next month, we explore why more sustainable coastal management tools aren’t being used.

Investigative Series: 2 of 3. [Read part I]

FS