State scuttles anchoring boats on Weeki Wachee River

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is putting new protections along 5.6 miles of the Weeki Wachee River in Hernando County.

The springs protection designation makes the Weeki Wachee the largest such zone in the state since the Legislature established the protections last year.

It grew out of concerns about crowding, trespassing on public and private shorelines — where access is not permitted — and other environmentally damaging behavior memorialized in photos, videos, social media discussions and studies over recent years.

The state wildlife commission vote Wednesday means visitors can’t beach, ground, moor or anchor their watercraft anywhere along the Weeki Wachee River between the boil of the head springs in Weeki Wachee Springs State Park to Hernando County-owned Rogers Park.

Most of the 35 people who spoke to the wildlife commission Wednesday favored the protection zone.

Hernando County Administrator Jeff Rogers said elected officials in the community wanted the protections put in place to create the right mix of recreation, business and tourism. He also said Hernando County would help to provide enforcement of the new rule. The Southwest Florida Water Management District, which owns much of the river shoreline, was going to provide education, Rogers said.

Michael McGrath of the Florida Springs Council said people do not realize how much damage they do to a spring just by getting out of their boat or kayak.

“Weeki Wachee is being loved to death,” he said.

An online survey generated 1,000 comments, with the vast majority in favor of the springs protection zone, said Fish and Wildlife Commission Maj. Rob Beaton.

But public support was not unanimous. Some speakers said they lived in homes along the river, but said that they didn’t favor the rules. The protections didn’t address problems such as sand introduced to the river by the state park at its Buccaneer Bay site. Others said tourism has been allowed to grow too fast and that all agencies overseeing the river have failed to manage it properly.

For the past seven years — since a town hall meeting in 2016 focused on the rapidly declining health of the river — advocates have worked to find a solution while facing a variety of challenges. At the beginning, then Sen. Wilton Simpson of Trilby gave his support and ultimately secured the state funding to dredge the river, which is currently underway.

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The wildlife commission had originally recommended a smaller area of protection, one confined to just 20 sandbars along the river, then agreed to the expansion after listening to the support from not only Hernando County but the other state agencies which controlled land on the river.

Commission staff also cited research including a carrying capacity study that showed recreation was the primary contributor to the obvious degradation of the river over the last decade. The river got more shallow and wider. Trees were lost along banks eroded by public trampling as were seagrasses critical to the ecosystem.

Agency representatives also saw how vessels stopped along the entire spring run, not just the sandbars, had contributed to the erosion, vegetation loss and overall damage to the river system, according to the report.

Shannon Turbeville, who led the charge on saving the river, called the commission’s vote historic.

“I’m proud of the (state wildlife commission) leadership for reconsidering the facts associated with not only Hernando County’s request, but the Florida State Parks as well,” he said. “This is a very small compromise in order to help save what we are all loving to death.”