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Esta página no está disponible en español. Advocate Fights To Save Sea Turtles In Key West Harbor Dredging… Dredge Finishes Work, No Turtles Harmed
Advocate Fights To Save Sea Turtles In Key West Harbor Dredging By CORALIE CARLSON March 3, 2004 KEY WEST, Fla. (AP) - The Navy soon will begin dredging Key West Harbor for the first time since 1965 -- a project heralded as a boon to both homeland security and the nearby coral. But a leading turtle advocate warns that it could devastate the local sea turtle population. A dredge that is known as a "turtle killer" will be used in an area where more than a dozen turtles roam daily, said Ritchie Moretti, who founded the only state-certified veterinary hospital for sea turtles. The dredgers, who are set to begin work Saturday, will be required to put extra safety measures in place if one turtle from an endangered species is killed or injured or if three from a threatened species are killed or hurt. Moretti says that isn't good enough. Last year, there were only four nests of sea turtle eggs laid on Key West. That means there's only two or three nesting turtles, he said. "The two or three turtles they're allowed to kill may be the only nesting turtles we have in Key West," Moretti said. "It's just so serious what they're trying to do." The $36 million dredging project, administered by the Army Corps of Engineers, is designed to support the Homeland Security Department and help replace training missions for the Navy and Marine Corps since the discontinuation of training at Vieques, Puerto Rico, by making the harbor deep enough to handle large ships. It will also remove sediment that can be lethal to coral reefs. At issue is a piece of equipment called the hopper dredge, which will be used for about the first two weeks of the two-year project. The dredge is a ship about 300-feet long with an arm on each side that reaches the sea floor. At the end of each arm is a 4- to 12-foot wide vacuum -- called a draghead -- that sucks up sand. Each draghead is equipped with a turtle deflector, a plow that is lowered six inches into the sand and pushes the turtles out of the way. The material sucked into the vacuum goes through a pump and is emptied into a hopper. Smaller items, like conch shells and the smaller green sea turtles, can often make it through the pump unscathed or with survivable injuries, said Phillip Bates, a mechanical engineer for the U.S. Army corps of engineers in Jacksonville. But larger sea turtles, such as loggerheads, would likely be hurt or sliced into pieces, he said. In either case, an independent, state-certified observer will monitor the material dumped into the hopper for turtles and their remains. If the observer finds evidence of one leatherback, kemps ridley, hawksbill or green turtle, a trawler must be put in place in front of the dredge within eight hours to net the sea turtles and move them three miles away. The trawler also must be used if the observer finds three loggerhead turtles, which are a threatened species. Moretti is fighting to get the trawler used from the start. "It's the best thing we can do to save the turtles," he said. "The hopper dredge is just so flipping vicious." He has convinced Florida officials, but they say it's too late to change the project's requirements. The state did not know how many turtles resided in the dredging area when it issued its permit, said Robbin Trindell, biological administrator at the state's Office of Protective Species. Moretti has monitored the area by air for three days each the past two years and documented at least 12 turtles daily. Knowing that, the state would have required the trawler in its permit, but can't force its use now, Trindell said. "We're still recommending the relocation trawling," she said. But the Corps and the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary say the trawling isn't good for the overall environment. "There will be secondary impacts from trawling," said Billy Causey, director of the marine sanctuary. "You put a net down in a tropical reef environment, you're going to pull tropical reef fish to the surface. "Others of us have to step back and look at all the marine life." The reef fish and other marine animals that could be killed by the trawler are not endangered species like the turtles, but Causey said the trawler is more likely to kill the fish than save the turtles. "We have really thought this through," said Paul Kruger, an environmental protection specialist for the Corps. "At this point, we just could not see that this was the appropriate thing to do for the turtle or the other resources." Besides the turtle deflector, the contractor who operates the dredge is paid extra to take other precautions, such as turning off the dredge before it's removed from the sand, Kruger said. Meanwhile, during a rare break from his crusade, Moretti checked on his patients at The Turtle Hospital in Marathon. Some have had their flippers sawed off by fishing line, others have broken shells from boat collisions and several suffer from unexplained tumors that Moretti is playing a key role in trying to identify and treat. "We see a lot of things that we can't help," Moretti said. "And here we are going to go out and kill turtles for no reason." ------ On the Net: The Turtle Hospital: www.theturtlehospital.org Key West Dredging: www.keywestdredging.com Dredge Finishes Work In Key West, No Turtles Harmed By CORALIE CARLSON April 17, 2004 MIAMI (AP) - A dredge that has drawn criticism and a court challenge over fears it would kill sea turtles in Key West Harbor finished its work this week without hurting any of the reptiles, although some coral was damaged. In 33 days, the hopper dredge, which vacuums sand and silt from the ocean floor, removed about 120,000 cubic yards of material and dumped it in the ocean about 13 miles off Key West. Coral was damaged at least twice by the dredge, Navy spokesman Bob Nelson said. Officials were investigating the extent of the damage caused by the dredging that ended Thursday. "Everybody's working together to find out what happened, why it happened," said Cindy Foley, a spokeswoman for the Army Corps of Engineers, which was administering the project for the Navy. Sea turtles can also get vacuumed into the dredge and injured or killed by its pumps. Two independent observers were on the ship to look for injured turtles or turtle remains, but none were found. Ritchie Moretti, who founded the only state-certified veterinary hospital for sea turtles and monitored some of the dredging from a helicopter, said the screens that would catch any turtle remains were not properly in place for the first three days of dredging, so it was not possible to know whether any turtles were killed then. "Hopefully they didn't kill any turtles, but they could have," Moretti said. Moretti said the dredging violated the Endangered Species Act and has filed a notice of intent to sue with the Army, Navy, Army Corps of Engineers, Commerce Department and National Marine Fisheries Service. He said he would pursue the lawsuit even though there was no evidence of harm to the turtles. The $36 million dredging project, administered by the Army Corps of Engineers, is designed to support the Homeland Security Department and help replace training missions for the Navy and Marine Corps since the discontinuation of training at Vieques, Puerto Rico, by making the harbor deep enough to handle large ships. It will also remove sediment that can be lethal to coral reefs. Another dredge, which is not known to injure sea turtles, is expected to start the second phase of the project in mid-May. It will last about 20 months. ------ On the Net: The Turtle Hospital: http://www.theturtlehospital.org Key West Dredging: http://www.keywestdredging.com
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