Bonefish & Tarpon Trust has significant concerns regarding the proposed Knott-Cowen Cruise Port on the seaward side of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, near Terra Ceia Bay and Rattlesnake Key in Manatee County, Florida.
This development would dramatically impact an ecologically sensitive area that is important to tarpon and many other recreational fish species, including snook, seatrout, and redfish. The ecological sensitivity and importance of the area are highlighted by the adjacent Terra Ceia Aquatic Preserve, which protects ecologically vulnerable and rare live hardbottom, estuarine and wetland habitats in the area. These habitats, also found at the proposed port location, are essential for sustainable tarpon populations and support a regional recreational fishery worth an estimated $1.5 billion and thousands of jobs. Construction and operation of the cruise port would negatively impact the tarpon fishery in the Tampa Bay area. Given the seasonal migratory patterns of adult tarpon, those impacts would also extend into the Gulf.
Construction of a cruise port would require the dredging of an access channel, which would destroy extensive hardbottom, degrade and sediment adjacent hardbottom, and degrade and destroy seagrass and wetland habitats. This live hardbottom area is an important migratory corridor for adult tarpon and is used by tarpon for their spawning activities. These dredging activities, along with the passage of cruise ships and other port-related activities, would significantly disrupt tarpon migration patterns and habitat use that are essential to the recreational fishery.
Finally, a large portion of creek and wetland habitats relied upon by juvenile tarpon have already been lost statewide due to coastal development, greatly increasing the importance of the habitats that remain. The loss of these habitats and the environmental disruption to accommodate the proposed cruise port would be especially damaging.
Bonefish & Tarpon Trust opposes the Knott-Cowen Cruise Port as planned and urges the Manatee County Commission and relevant government agencies to address and resolve these environmental impacts before taking further action.