Key Biscayne’s village council is taking action again in its growing effort to stop the dangerous mix of powerboat propellers and swimmers crowding the Mashta Flats off the key’s west coast on Biscayne Bay.

The latest move is an ordinance, adopted in February that designates the municipal part of the flats a swimming area and bans boats from it. Legal limitations apparently require that boats be described in general terms as “vessels,” without distinction between motorboats and, say, kayaks.

A previous version, reported last July in Waterfront Times, attempted to make the flats a no-motor zone.

Here’s what the current ordinance says:

“No owner, operator or person in command of any vessel shall permit or operate a vessel within the Mashta Flats area within the village’s municipal boundaries...”

In practice, the village police plan to prohibit only motorcraft on a 12-acre portion of the flat where they have responsibility and jurisdiction. The rest, 47 acres, is state-owned.

A contractor, Coastal Systems International, has been assigned the job of marking the boundary. Director Tim Blankenship said 10 pilings will be installed: “Each of the 10 pile markers will consist of an aluminum sign attached by stainless steel bolts to a single piling. The sign will read ‘Swimming Area No Motorized Vessels Beyond This Point’.”

On holidays and weekends, the area is mobbed by boats rafted up and others anchored almost gunwale to gunwale in assorted directions. There’s often spillover to deeper waters. It’s a big party where not everyone is sober or careful. Engines turn and props spin while people play in the water.

There are accidents, injuries and occasionally a fatality.

The flat’s best known near-death story is that of Danielle Press, daughter of Key Biscayne’s chief of police. An engine prop carved terrible wounds in her left side while she was in the water on an otherwise perfect Saturday on Sept. 14, 2013.

Few details of the accident were publicly known before the Miami Herald published her frightening yet upbeat personal story last Nov. 26. It’s still accessible online, a must-read account for anyone who cares about boating safety — even more so for everyone who doesn’t. See it at this address: www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/key-biscayne/article....

The map illustrating the city-state boundary of the flats is attached to the ordinance. It can be seen online at http://keybiscayne.fl.gov/clientuploads/Clerk/agendas/cm-15-02-10-tab6.pdf.

Marshes to be restored

Everglades National Park is moving ahead with a plan to restore freshwater marshes upland of Cape Sable by re-plugging three oldtime drainage ditches where previous efforts failed.

Another part of the long-range project is to put a fourth plug on East Side Creek. That’s the one most likely to stir dispute because the creek is the only practical access to a back-country no-motor zone that is prime fishing territory.

The creek flows south from the back country into the East Cape Canal about 1,400 feet from the canal mouth.

One idea is to plug a now-small opening from the creek to the canal at a spot 700 feet south of a near-new dam. Another idea is a larger dam above that.

The public will have two opportunities to influence the plans — first by helping to direct an environmental assessment that’s required before anything else can be done. There’s a March 8 deadline for that.

Later on, the National Park Service will present us with a group of alternative solutions, ask for our input again and then decide what to do.

That’s the easy part. Actually getting the job done — not to mention paying $10 million or more for it — could be a staggering, manpower-intensive logistical problem. Imagine horses and mules, maybe cargo helicopters.
We know that because we’ve read an engineering analysis and feasibility study completed three years ago and referenced a few paragraphs below. Fishing-doers and other environmentalists should read it if they want to make informed criticisms and suggestions.

Here’s a summary of the underlying problem:

The old plugs were supposed to solve the same problem, but erosion and deterioration have allowed high saltwater tides from Florida Bay to penetrate upland Lake Ingraham and the freshwater marshes around it. The ebbing tide carries fresh water out.

That is not exactly natural, not at Cape Sable. It wouldn’t be happening if the Raulerson canal and the House and Slagle ditches hadn’t been dug in the first place.

Like the East Cape and Homestead canals, those were excavated early in the 20th century to drain the Everglades for agricultural purposes that never bore fruit. In this century, attempts to plug them proved too temporary.

Once a plug is breached — settlement and erosion are the usual causes — the artificial waterway gradually widens. So does the flow. More salt water gets in, more
fresh water gets out.

Now, with the long-term prospect of relentlessly rising sea levels, scientists and engineers fear that will happen more often and more severely than just on the occasional extra-high tide.

Raulerson Canal connects to Little Sable Creek off the northwest end of Lake Ingraham. House Ditch drains into Florida Bay a bit less than a mile east of East Cape canal and Slagle Ditch about a mile east of House.
For project details online, begin at this Park Service link: http://parkplanning.nps.gov/projectHome.cfm?parkID=374&projectID=56562.

At the bottom of that page is a phone number to call if you want a paper copy.

On the left side, click the “open for comment” link to see the engineering and feasibility study, named “Engineering Analysis and Feasibility of repairing or Replacing Failed Dams and Limiting Salt Water Intrusion in Cape Sable, Everglades National Park.”

Your browser may have trouble (ours did) with the Park Service link. If so, try this Audubon Society link that opens in the Netscape browser: http://audubonoffloridanews.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Cape%20Sable%....

Spear fishers busted

Busted I: Ryan L. Wegele of St. Augustine and three other people were caught spearfishing illegally in the Keys on Jan. 27, the Fish and Wildlife Commission reported.

Wildlife officer Danielle Munkelt listened to their stories, doubted them and inspected their boat, an unregistered vessel belonging to a friend of Wegele’s, according to FWC spokesman Bobby Dube.

Munkelt, on water patrol, found the spearers snorkeling near shore at the Channel 5 bridge near Craig Key. On their boat, she counted five lobsters including a short one and an undersized, out-of-season snook, all speared.

Dube said Wegele, 26, was the only keeper. He was carried to the Plantation Key Jail on six misdemeanor charges — three for the snook and two for the lobsters plus one charge of interfering with the arresting officer.

Dube said each of those offenses could get Wegele 60 days in jail and a $500 fine. He also got a ticket for the unregistered boat.

Busted II: James O. McGriff of Riviera Beach, whose arrest for poaching 299 sea turtle eggs was reported here in September, has been sentenced in federal court to 14 months in prison and three years on probation.

He has been there before, on a 43-month stretch for a turtle egg crime committed in 2002.

McGriff’s probation includes an order to stay away from the beaches —more exactly, not to go east of the Intracoastal Waterway. He was caught poaching the eggs, which are protected by federal law, at Diamond Sands Beach on Hutchinson Island.

The U.S. Attorney’s office reported that the market for sea turtle eggs is $3 to $5 per egg, but that McGriff planned to ask $20 a dozen. He never got them to market, for a witness saw him raiding nests and called the police.

Historic shipwreck diving

Diving on the historic shipwrecks of Biscayne National Park is more fun now that bronze plaques mounted on boulders have been placed at five of the six wreck sites on the Maritime Heritage Trail.

The vessels went down between 1966 and 1978. The last one was a member of the Windjammer cruising fleet. The square plaques, sized 2 feet by 2 feet, tell the stories of the Mandalay, Alicia, Lugano, Erl King, and a 19th century wooden sailer whose name and story are unknown. If not for the plaque, you might not recognize it as a shipwreck. Hardly anything is left of it except basalt ballast stones.

The others do have stories to read. If you can’t make the dives, you can read up on them online. Biscayne National Park’s web address is www.nps.gov/bisc where you can learn more about the park. The web address is www.nps.gov/bisc/historyculture/maritime-heritage-trail.htm.

A sixth wreck, named Arratoon Apcar, will get its plaque later.