By Rich Pollack
The town of Highland Beach is not giving up on its efforts to get boaters on the Intracoastal Waterway to slow down and create less wake — at least not yet.
For more than a decade, residents living along the Intracoastal have been complaining that wakes from fast-moving boats are damaging seawalls and creating dangerous situations for swimmers and other boaters.
In response, town officials led by Commissioner Lou Stern, have been writing to and talking to representatives of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for about six years. They have discovered, however, that there is little that can be done to transform the three-mile stretch of the waterway bordering Highland Beach into a slow-speed zone.
Now, at the urging of the Beaches and Shores Committee, the town will once again speed up its efforts to get boaters to slow down. Those efforts could include letters to state legislators urging them to change statutes, as well as moving forward with plans to install signs on the waterway notifying boaters that they’re responsible for their own wakes.
In a letter to the commission, Beaches and Shores Chairwoman Elyse Riesa asked that the town send a letter to the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission asking for a no-wake or slow-speed zone.
But during a meeting last month, Stern and other members of the commission said that their efforts in the past have had little impact and said that the stretch of the Intracoastal bordering the town does not meet criteria — specifically outlined by state statute — for a slow-speed zone.
“Until the laws are changed, there’s not much we can do,” Stern said later. “Can we change the laws? I don’t know.”
Both Riesa and Beaches and Shores Committee Vice Chairman Ira Oaklander urged the commission to keep pressing despite being turned down in the past.
“Why can’t we start thinking positively?” Riesa said.
Following the meeting, Stern wrote to Dawn Griffin, a planning manager with the wildlife commission’s boating and waterways section, who reiterated that the town can’t take action to change current speed limits of 25 mph and 30 mph on the waterway without legislative action.
She said, however, that the town could put information signs along the waterway that would have to be installed following very specific regulations — and have to be done at the town’s expense. The sign, by statute, can only say “You Are Responsible for Your Wake.”
Scott Calleson, a biologist with the wildlife commission’s manatee program, said that slow speeds can be mandated in areas designated as manatee protection zones, but there would have to be documented evidence that manatees are frequently seen in the area and that boat speeds are causing harm.
He said the area of the waterway bordering Highland Beach currently doesn’t meet those criteria, but added that plans are to do a review of manatee protection zones in Palm Beach County within the next three to five years.
Calleson said that a slow-speed zone can also be established in an area with a high number of vehicle accidents, but Stern said the area bordering the town doesn’t meet those criteria either.
“Wake damage to shoreline property isn’t a criteria for a slow-speed zone,” Calleson said.
Stern said he and Oaklander will meet in the near future to determine the next steps in the town’s efforts to reduce wakes and at the same time will be exploring the possibility of posting signs.
Commissioner Rhoda Zelniker, who supports the Beaches and Shores Committee’s efforts, said she hopes the town will continue to pursue the issue. “I think we shouldn’t give up,” she said.
Highland Beach
Proposed tax rate: $4.59 per $1,000 of taxable value*
2014-15 tax rate: $4.64 per $1,000 of taxable value
Change in property value: 7.9 percent increase
Total budget (operating and capital): $11.5 million
Public hearings: 5:01 p.m. Sept. 10 and Sept. 24 at Town Hall
*Includes operating and debt service tax rates.
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