Florida County First to Include the Marine Environment in its Comprehensive Plan

Hernando County, just north of Tampa Bay, has become Florida’s first county to include a long-term management strategy for its entire marine and coastal zone in the county’s comprehensive plan. Previous comprehensive plans covered dry land or shoreline issues, but left out management of marine submerged lands. Hernando County’s comprehensive plan now addresses activities in submerged habitats up to 9 nautical miles out from the county’s coast, where state waters end and federal waters begin.

With technical support from Florida Sea Grant and legal students from University of Florida Levin College of Law, Hernando County officials worked on developing approaches for the restoration, enhancement and management of the county’s marine waters. The final report focuses on shoreline stabilization, navigation and water access, commercial and recreational fisheries, oyster reef restoration, artificial reefs and hard bottom and seagrass.

Money for marine enhancement projects that stem from this plan will come from the RESTOREGulf Coast Restoration Trust Fund set up by BP after the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill,

Six main goals intended to sustain and improve the county’s marine environment, tourism industry and water access points are addressed in the plan.

The goals are:

·         To ensure that all estuarine shoreline interfaces in Hernando County contribute to the ecological health and resiliency of the county’s coastal and estuarine ecosystems.

·         To maintain, restore and create a robust system of nearshore oyster reefs that contributes to estuarine health, productive fisheries and coastal resiliency.

·         To enhance Hernando County’s fisheries by maximizing available structure for recreationally important fish species at all life history stages through artificial reef deployment.

·         To maintain robust economically and ecologically sustainable recreational and commercial fisheries.

·         To develop, maintain and enhance a resilient program of land-based and in-water maritime access infrastructure to support the sustainable commercial and recreational use of the marine and estuarine waters of Hernando County.

·         To ensure the ecological integrity of Hernando County’s unique assemblage of seagrass bed habitats and interspersed hardbottom.