Reef Rescue to the Rescue of our Staghorn Coral

We are asking for your help again - with another letter writing email campaign. This time aimed at the Town of Palm Beach.

As most of you may know Staghorn coral was added to the Endangered Species List in 2006. An aspect of the listing was for the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) to establish an area of Critical Habitat, necessary for the survival of the species. NMFS did that and proposed an area in Florida to include all suitable reef habitats from the Dry Tortugas to the northern end of Palm Beach County. The wealthy Town of Palm Beach objected to having the reefs offshore of the town included in the habitat protection area. In November 2008, NMFS issued the final critical habitat designation and excluded the reefs offshore of Palm Beach, eliminating half of Palm Beach County from the protected area.

Reef Rescue filed a formal petition with the feds to revise the critical habitat boundary back northward to the Palm Beach Inlet (near where it was originally proposed) to encompass the Staghorn coral growing offshore of the Town of Palm Beach. NMFS accepted the Reef Rescue petition for reevaluation of the habitat boundary. FDEP sent a letter to NMFS supporting the Reef Rescue request and the neighboring City of Lake Worth issued a proclamation supporting the Reef Rescue position. The Town of Palm Beach on the other hand sent a letter to NMFS reiterating that reef protection will interfere with its beach renourishment projects and that the limited number of Staghorn coral off their coast does not warrant habitat protections. THIS IS WHY WE ARE ASKING FOR YOUR HELP.

In 2006, your emails convinced Delray Beach to stop dumping 14 MGD of partially treated sewage onto the reefs. In 2007, your emails persuaded Lake Worth to withdraw a permit request to discharge 4 MGD of wastewater onto Horseshoe Reef. More emails stopped St. Marys Medical Center from closing the only hyperbaric chamber in the county used to treat decompression sickness. Your emails influenced passage of legislation to close all the south Florida ocean sewage outfalls. And our last email campaign helped move forward the Coral Reef Protection Act.

HERE IS WHAT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO DO:
Email the Town of Palm Beach and ask them to withdraw their objection to the Staghorn coral Critical Habitat Designation for the coral reefs off their shoreline. CLICK HERE to follow the link to our ACTION ALERT page which is setup for you to send an email. The page also presents more information on the issue and provides links to resource materials. It does not matter if you are a Florida or US resident or not. We found in the past, some of the most effective emails were sent from tourists who expressed their concern about visiting a town that was not willing to take the responsibility to protect our reefs. Reefs that are a national treasure and coral that is on the federal Endangered Species List.

Please forward this mail to everyone on your email list. We need your support. The Town of Palm Beach exerts a disproportionate amount of influence on Florida and National politics. Politicians do listen, when enough emails are sent.

Reef Rescue
Ed Tichenor