Gulfport Weighs Pros and Cons of Mooring Field

The Gulfport city council is considering a proposal for a Boca Ciega Bay mooring field presented at its meeting last month by Gulfport Harbormaster Denis Frain on behalf of the city. The current proposal calls for 25 moorings located 300 feet into the bay south of the dock to a point 900 feet south. East to west it would range from the boundaries of Veteran's Park to the middle of the public beach.

The project is intended to attract passing boaters that would pay a daily or monthly fee for a secure mooring, draw revenue for the city and merchants and help make Gulfport more of a tourist destination. Initial costs for permits and installation after grants were estimated to be $55,000 by City Manager James O'Reilly during the presentation.

Opinions vary in regards to the proposal. Some residents are in favor and others are opposed while many choose to wait and see what the final proposal will entail. Environmental concerns include protection of sea grass in shallow waters although the location of the mooring field is apparently in deep enough waters to prevent shading damage. Seemingly intended for sail boats, the mooring field would allow motor boats, which may alarm manatee lovers.

The most contentious factors appear to be the amount the city spends, the necessity and the amount of waste – or greywater – illegally dumped into the water by visiting boats.

“My issue is where do we get the money,” says Council Member Sam Henderson, noting that there is not yet a final cost for the project. “The environmental end is not my problem it's how do we pay for it. I don't want us to do something that's going to be a benefit for a few people at the expense of taking away money for resources and services that we offer. Right now there are still a lot of unknowns.”

Resident and boater Al Davis feels the mooring field would benefit the city.

“I think we have an untapped resource here. I feel it would benefit the public and the boating community and the business community and I think it would look good.” He later added that “it really should be a destination port in Florida. It's just a huge loss of capitalization of a great resource. I see no harm.”

He also feels that a mooring field, while it would have no direct control on other boats in the harbor, could result in more adherence to boating regulations.

“When people start showing a little pride in a place it spills over and we haven't shown a lot of pride in our waterfront,” he says. “We certainly haven't shown any pride in . It's an opportunity with a new council and a fresh look to capitalize on a very much neglected and abused resource.”

Council Member Jennifer Salmon opposed a much larger mooring field proposed for Gulfport in 2004 but is more encouraged about the current proposal. Still she has her environmental concerns.

“I'm not saying that the people currently out there anchoring are not disposing of greywater properly but the one thing I learned from Denis Frain was that none of the boats who are most often anchoring there (based on boat ID numbers) have ever been to the free pump out at the marina. So you just don't know.”

She also feels that permanent moorings would be a better alternative to anchors, which can damage the bay floor.

Resident Phil Reed points to empty slips at the Gulfport Marina and potential costs to upgrade the laundry and restroom facilities there, which were stipulated as a requirement as part of the proposal.

“With 40 empty slips at the marina why would anyone go on a ball (mooring buoy)?” he asks, questioning the amount of visits a mooring field would generate.

“According to the city manager’s reports for the year 2010 a total of 68 sail boats stayed short term at the marina. The DEP will not allow power boats in the mooring field. We would be building this for less than 70 boats a year. That’s less than six a month. How much economic development would six boats a month provide?”

His estimation is that start up costs, permitting fees, environmental studies and amenity upgrades would cost as much as $300,000 and that with Federal and state funding cuts, grants might not remain available. He also cited reduced city tax revenue.

“I'm not against it but there are a lot of unanswered questions,” he says. “Everybody wants to keep the same level of services and we're not going to be able to do that without raising taxes. I chance to say that anyone on the city council would not want to be raising taxes.”

Gulfport Harbormaster Denis Frain says that while the mooring field would not create any new means in which to enforce boating regulations in the bay, it could create additional boundary areas that may impede the amount of space in which the owners of broken down or derelict vessels have to anchor or access their boats.

He says the marina staff is well aware of the vessels now damaged in the waterfront area and that most of them have owners that intend to repair or move them. He also feels a mooring field would not compete with the marina.

“You're talking two different clientele,” he says. “The person that's going to stay in a mooring field most likely is a sail boat anywhere from 30 to 60 feet. They don't typically use a marina and are self sufficient. They have solar panels and water makers and generators so there's no need for them to go into the marina.”

He said typical power vessels 40 to 55 feet use a marina because they prefer to plug into dockside power and use upland facilities.

As for the operation of mooring fields he explained that boaters would radio in on VHF channel 16 to the marina, are then assigned a ball then make arrangements to come to the marina to pay.

“What we'll do if we know they're coming is we'll have an attached line to the buoy and all they have to do is pick it up and attach it to their boat,” he says. “Right now what they're doing is anchoring. If you've ever pulled up a 35, 40 pound anchor a bunch of times it's a daunting task. It would be a lot easier to hook up one of our lines to their vessels.”

Vero Beach has had a mooring field for more than 20 years and has been compared with Gulfport because of its population although its waterfront area on the Atlantic coast sees much more traffic. Its harbormaster, Tim Grabenbauer, says its marina and mooring field (more than 100 balls) combined receive as many as 21,000 overnight stays per year.

“The slips were almost at 100 percent occupancy this winter so I could actually use a few more slips,” he said, adding that mooring field use is higher during the cooler months as air conditioning is not needed. He also pointed to a busy Sunday two weekends ago when the marina sold 1,200 gallons of gas at $4.55 per gallon for added revenue.

Vero Beach rates recently changed and it now charges $14.87 per day per mooring (after tax) entitling users to two showers per day. A boat staying at the mooring field would pay $446.10 per month. He ran an economic study several years ago and estimated the economic impact of the marine industry as a whole on Vero Beach, including rental cars, restaurants and other factors, was about $4 million per year.

“The mooring field concept, even though it's twenty-some years old, is kind of newly catching on in Florida,” Mr. Grabenbauer says. “It's interesting. Florida is a very big boating state but in some ways it's not very boater friendly.”

David Steinke, owner of Mariner's Cove Marina in Gulfport, feels there is no need for a mooring field.

“It's going to have no economic impact at all because there aren't any people coming. If they did come we would have an environmental problem because of all the greywater they discharge from these transient boats.”

He feels greywater is a potential danger to the public swimming areas and that the mooring field will cost much more than anticipated, comparing it to Sarasota, which ran far over budget partly as a result of an outside engineering firm that charged the city $320,000 after recommending the wrong type of anchoring equipment, which would not hold to a seafloor of clay over limestone and rock. Sarasota's mooring field will have more than 100 buoys when it opens.

“They're planning on finishing this whole project for $55,000,” Mr. Steinke says. “Sarasota estimated that their mooring field was going to cost $300,000 to $500,000 and they're already up to $1.2 million.”

He added, “we're going to run into the same thing here. They're going into this thing with blinders on. I've owned the marina down here for 30 years and we have worked, and everybody else in Gulfport has worked, to cut down the impact on our bay.”

The Gulfport city council will discuss the mooring field at its May 26 workshop at 3:30 p.m. at Gulfport City Hall.