Group seeking to build Marine Sanctuary under Navarre Pier

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mike_s

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from http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MARINE_SANCTUARY?SITE=VAHAR


Group Seeks to Build Marine Sanctuary

NAVARRE BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- A private group hopes to create a marine sanctuary for nurse sharks, angelfish, starfish and other sea life that live below an abandoned Florida Panhandle pier.

Chris Verlinde of the University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences is among the volunteers working to raise support for the nearshore sanctuary
While taking tourists on a snorkeling expedition, she and fellow sanctuary enthusiast Brenda Stokes described the area beneath the pier.

"We saw three nurse sharks together on the bottom. What a thrilling sight," she told the Navarre Press.

In the 1990s, the Florida Parks and Recreation Division promised to build a marine sanctuary on the Navarre Beach. But planners underestimated costs and the project was postponed.

In February, supporters were told the funding would be used instead to repair hurricane damage to the nearby state park.

So the Navarre Beach Nearshore Marine Sanctuary Committee has begun a publicity campaign and soon will begin fundraising.

The sanctuary would benefit businesses by luring eco-tourists and it would provide educational opportunities for area students, said Mike Sandler, a diver and committee supporter.
 
I don't understand the point of raising funds? The hurricane has already done its job and damaged the pier to a point of it being condemned to anyone on the surface. We dive under it all the time, the upright pylons are fun to play around on and the couple sections that have fallen over hold quite a bit of life.

If they want this to happen, all that needs to be done is... nothing. They need to put up a fight to keep anyone else from doing anything to ruin what nature has already provided us, a broken down old pier.
 
The best thing that they could do is knock down the old pier and leave all the rubble pilled up to allow things to create a habitat on it. The county could designate it as a marine sanctuary and the divers, snorklers, the people involved in this committee, and the local marine life would all benefit from it.
 
The upright pylons are pretty fun to swim around, it'd be nice to keep those up, it also helps navigation. I wouldn't mind them toppling over the remaining spans running across the pylons though.
 
Its the old fishing pier on the main Navarre Beach area.
 
No special permission is needed to dive the Pier right now, but what if the new pier is to close to the old one? Will the rights of Pier Fisherman take presedence over divers rights? I'm not exactly how far it is that a diver must stay away from a fishing pier but it's pretty substantial from my understanding of Pensacola's Fishing pier!
 
Historically, we weren't allowed to dive Navarre Pier, except for at night, when fisherman weren't allowed on the pier. This is why we have free rain over the current pier, as its condemned to people from the surface :D
 
I have seen people on the pier, although probably illegally, I've come up and had them yelling and pointing that there were some big rays over there. So I'd dive again so I could see them.....Again.
 
All groups want to "raise funds", it's what groups do. Maybe they are wanting to ease the personal expense of volunteers lobbying for a sanctuary designation. Or money to tear down the old pier which area residents probably consider unsightly (esp. after the new one gets built). Maybe set up permanent research and monitoring equipment.
 
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