Officials Explore Turtle Lighting Plan: TDC’s Warren Presents Draft Plan to County Commissioners

By Ed Offley, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Apr. 23–PANAMA CITY BEACH — Three weeks from now, spring tourists once again will find themselves sharing the gulf beachfront with endangered loggerhead sea turtles as the annual nesting season begins.

For federal, state and local government officials from here to Tallahassee, the return of the sea turtles to create nests and lay eggs adds a new sense of urgency toward solving a long-running dispute between the Bay County beach tourism community and wildlife protection agencies over safeguarding hatchlings.

The Bay County Tourist Development Council has been grappling with how to limit lighting along the beachfront in a way the turtles are safe but tourists are not exposed to increased risk of accident or vulnerability to crime from the lighting restrictions. TDC Executive Director Robert L. Warren presented a draft plan to address sea turtle protection to the Bay County Commission on Tuesday that outlines a series of steps the council intends to follow between now and year’s end to devise a draft turtle protection ordinance.

The county commissioners unanimously voted to instruct Warren and his staff to proceed with the planning process. Warren will make an identical presentation to the Panama City Beach City Council at its meeting Thursday.

“We’re not close yet” to a proposed ordinance, Warren said Thursday. “We’re beginning the process.”

The fundamental issue remains how to shield the turtle hatchlings from becoming disoriented as a result of exposure to manmade lights along the beach as they emerge from their nests and attempt to enter the water. Young turtles instinctively seek to follow the moonlight, but bright lights from hotels, swimming pools and parking lots near the shore can cause them to head inland by mistake.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Florida Wildlife Conservation Commission, or FWC, have pressed the county to implement a turtle protection ordinance modeled on a federal template that will impose strict requirements to reduce lighting in order to prevent hatchlings from dying as a result of disorientation. In some cases, it would require retrofitting buildings, pools and parking lots with newly designed lights.

The federal and state agencies have a powerful weapon to persuade the TDC to comply with their calls for a strict turtle protection ordinance: If the ongoing effort fails to meet the service’s criteria, the state wildlife commission can shut down the ongoing beach renourishment program carried out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“The threat is real,” Warren said. “If FWC halts its ongoing ‘consulting’ with the Army Corps of Engineers, the brakes hit.”

Emotional and

confrontational issue

The issue at times has been emotional and confrontational, both sides agree.

Previous attempts to instigate lighting restrictions have sparked sharp opposition from prominent beachfront hotel owners. Writing in a 2005 op-ed column in The News Herald, SunSpree Resort vice president Julie Hilton said meeting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service requirements would cost her company more than $3.3 million to install the recommended fixtures at that one hotel alone.

“How can you resolve the conflict between human safety laws and the proposed model turtle lighting ordinance so property owners are not stuck in the middle?” Hilton wrote.

Nevertheless, a pilot ordinance adopted by the county five years ago that covers a five-mile stretch of the beachfront from the Walton County line east toward Laguna Beach generally has been regarded as a success.

Achieving the balance between turtle protection and human safety will be the hardest element of the TDC’s eight-month effort, Warren admitted.

“We have to think of visitors and the safety of visitors” in addition to the turtle population, Warren said. “I think that there is a balance that you can reach between the Endangered Species Act and public safety requirements,” he added.

The TDC’s planning process involves an overlapping effort to review existing turtle lighting ordinances in other Florida cities and counties; a new lighting survey of the 18-mile beachfront; a review of new lighting technology that offers the promise of preventing hatchling disorientation while effectively illuminating tourist areas, and exploring available grants and educational programs that will assist the program to inform property owners and tourists alike on the issue.

The goal, said Lisa Armbruster, director of beach management for the city Convention & Visitors Bureau, is to formulate a draft turtle lighting ordinance to present to county and city governing bodies by Oct. 31, with review and public hearings prior to formal enactment by year’s end.

“This is most definitely a work in progress,” Armbruster said Friday. “The biggest challenge will be coming up with a lighting ordinance that is acceptable to the (Bay County) commission.”

“A solution is possible once we get over the emotional hype at the beginning of the process,” said Robin Trindell, a senior staff member at the state Wildlife Conservation Commission in Tallahassee. “We don’t want to turn off the lights. We just want to minimize light pollution.”

She noted that 19 out of 27 coastal counties in the state, as well as dozens of cities within those counties, have enacted turtle protection ordinances.

“We feel strongly that the beach can be shared, that you can have appropriate light on beachfront developments that work for both people and turtles,” Trindell said.

Federal and state wildlife officials say they are encouraged by the TDC’s planned program.

“The TDC has put together a good base to start working from,” said Lorna Patrick, a staff biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Panama City.

“We are really encouraged that things are moving in a positive direction with the whole lighting plan.”

—–

Copyright (c) 2007, The News Herald, Panama City, Fla.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.