The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) announces a public meeting to which all persons are invited.
DATE AND TIME: August 15, 2006, 12:30 p.m.
PLACE: Farris Bryant Building, Room 272, 620 South Meridian Street, Tallahassee, Florida
GENERAL SUBJECT MATTER TO BE CONSIDERED: The FWC and Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) developed a working group to address better legal evaluation and practical implementation of existing rules and statutes that address seagrass damage from vessel groundings. The working group has devised an operational guidance protocol from which our agencies would like to initiate a pilot cooperative enforcement effort in the Jensen Beach Aquatic Preserve. This test run over a period of 1 year will determine the efficacy of the approach of using existing statutory authority to address this issue, and will allow our agencies to assess whether it could be applied to all estuarine and marine Aquatic Preserve waters of the state. The FWC and DEP are hosting a meeting of the Stakeholder-Agency Working Group to Address Vessel Impact-Related Seagrass Habitat Loss in Florida Waters to present the operational guidance document, and receive feedback from the group.
A copy of the agenda may be obtained by contacting: Kent Smith, Biological Administrator, Marine/Estuarine Subsection, Division of Habitat and Species Conservation, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, 620 South Meridian Street, Tallahassee, FL 32399, (850)922-4330.
Pursuant to the provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act, any person requiring special accommodations to participate in this meeting is asked to advise the agency at least five (5) calendar days before the meeting by contacting the: ADA Coordinator, (850)488-6411. If you are hearing or speech impaired, please contact the agency by calling (850)488-9542.