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Thursday, July 5, 2001

New group makes inroads for waterway users

By LINDA WALTON | News-Journal Correspondent

OAK HILL — “No one wants to see the manatee harmed,” says Rick Rawlins, a DeLand fish camp owner who sits on the board of directors of one of the fastest growing organizations in the state.

Standing Watch, based in Naples with members across the state, has aligned itself to protecting the rights of boaters and fishermen to use public waters.

“We started out having meetings in people´s living rooms,” said Rawlins, who recently outlined goals to more than a 150 fishermen, guides and business representatives during a meeting in Oak Hill to organize against more restrictions for federal waters of Mosquito Lagoon.

The organization has grown to 6,000 members in about eight months, with approximately 100 members in Volusia County, according to Rawlins.

The initial impetus to form an organization centered around the West Indian manatee and increasing regulations gained by environmental groups, including the Save the Manatee Club, to create more slow-speed, refuge and sanctuary zones in waters throughout the state to protect the manatee.

Its goals have since been broadened to encompass all facets of increased waterway restrictions along with appealing to state legislators for a sensible scientific approach.

“We don´t believe the state Legislature intended for abuses (in restrictions) to take place,” Rawlins said.

The still growing organization does not counterattack the environmental factions supporting change.

“We are abstaining from engaging the environmental coalition in emotional dialogue in the headlines, and we are forcing them to justify their claims of an environmental crisis with respect to the population of the manatee,” said Standing Watch president Jim Kalvin.

Rawlins said Standing Watch believes the manatee counts used for increasing regulations are inaccurate and do not show the increase in manatees that has occurred. The figures the organization uses show the minimum number of observed manatees increasing from 800 in 1974 to 3,267 this year.

“We support using a scientific basis for any regulations and enforcement of the regulations that already exist,” said Rawlins. “We are sensible environmentalists.”

The creed of Standing Watch is that both man and marine life can share the waterways by the implementation and enforcement of “reasonable and effective” environmental regulations that are based on science and “common sense.”

The organization also strongly supports research by Edmund R. Gerstein as a promising method of helping manatees escape being struck by boats.

Gerstein, director of Marine Mammal Research and Behavior at Florida Atlantic University, has been conducting underwater acoustical research with manatees for about 10 years.

He believes his research is the key to solving the issues of manatees and boats coexisting.

Gerstein´s research is based on his findings that manatees have good hearing but only with a certain frequency range, from about 400 to 46,000 hertz. The frequency of a boat´s motor is under 50 hertz, which the manatee doesn´t hear until it is too late to get out of the way, according to his research.

He is working with a device that would be mounted on the hull of boats that emits a narrow beam of sound that would travel about 160 yards ahead of a moving boat, which manatees could hear and associate with danger to move out of the way.

A similar device could be used on waterway lock gates that were blamed for crushing 15 manatees in 1999, he said in printed material provided by the researcher.

The Standing Watch organization has filed for a state administrative hearing on the provisions for more restrictive waterway uses due to new manatee protection provisions that have been approved for Brevard County and will in succession be considered for Volusia and other counties in the state.

The organization also had a panelist on Gov. Bush´s manatee summit, has a full-time lobbyist and represents citizens with boating and fishing interests at meetings of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission.

Members also credit Standing Watch with playing a major role in defeat of proposed statewide boating registration fee increases.

Rawlins sees the biggest achievement of the organization as being the “ground swell” of support that has unified waterway users under one organization.

“The growth we have had in a short time, I believe, shows politicians we are organized and a have a strong voice to be heard.”

“We are making strides for the average person who uses the waterways,” said Rawlins.

Standing Watch meetings are held in both Sebring and Orlando. The organization can be reached at (866) 263-5015 or by visiting www.standing-watch.org

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