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THE PROPOSED MOORING FIELD
Implications of the finances, and potential impact on Marathon
Business'
Rather than the 25 initial mooring buoys as proposed by the BKH
Advisory Committee, the County Plan calls for an initial 149 buoys placed in two
mooring fields consisting of 87 acres. The County Plan eliminates all anchorage
West of the BKH bridge and restricts it to a small 24 acre field East of the
Bridge. The County Plan calls on eliminating this anchorage field as soon as
practical and converting it over to moorings, for a total mooring area of 111
acres. No overnight anchorage at all is allowed at this point. You can view a
graphic of these proposed fields by downloading the .PDF file of the county
plan. We think that this mooring / anchorage plan as proposed is extremely
excessive and should be modified back to the Harbor Advisory Committee's
recommendation of a phased program starting at 25 mooring buoys - further
increases based upon assessment of need and impact rather than arbitrary growth.
FINANCES & REVENUE GENERATION
The County Plan allows for any excess revenue generated by its operations to
be used to support the County Park. Though the plan states that they don't
intend to make a profit, the only penalty for making this profit is to pay an
annual fee to the State - - sort of a licensing fee to be in the
"business". These mooring fields as planned will generate an immense
cash flow for the county. We believe this is a self generated monopoly and is
unfair for several reasons. Boaters (cruisers or liveaboards) should not be
forced to take and pay for a mooring if they are perfectly capable of anchoring.
Forcing the entire harbor onto moorings is also grossly unfair to local marinas
within the harbor. A boater on a mooring, who has to pay their money to the
county, will not at that point elect to pay additional fees to other area
Marinas for dinghy dock rights. This keeps them out of these Marinas and those
business' lose both the dock revenue and additional revenue just generated by
the boating "traffic". This becomes a total monopoly for the county.
We believe that the question of mooring buoy installation should revolve around
overall benefit to boaters and the community, not simply revenue generation. And
we don't believe that the county park should be financed on the back of boaters
- cruisers and liveaboards alike.
No specific fees are included in the county plan, but experience
in other communities would indicate a $10-$20 per night transient mooring fee
(monthly fees to long term tenants are usually, and should be, significantly
discounted - perhaps in the$75 - $125 per month range). The following figures show a
potential monthly income to the county of
between $45,000 to $90,000 PER MONTH, with an expected increase to $57,000 to
$114,000 PER MONTH during the peak season. Since the conversion of the 24 acre
anchorage is a 27% increase in the size of the 87 acre mooring field(s), the
projections here reflect the 27% increase.
Possible Fees per night (transient)
$10
$15
$20 |
At Current 149 Moorings
$44,700
$67,050
$89,400 |
At proposed 189 Moorings
$56,700
$85,050
$113,400 |
IMPLICATIONS TO AREA BUSINESS' THROUGH REDUCTION IN BOATERS
Mooring fields should generally allow a higher density of boats in an area.
This means a moored harbor could accommodate more boats than if they anchored
(you don't have to worry about long scope and swing at anchor). We're not sure
exactly why, because we have not seen the county's engineering calculations for numbers of
boats in the mooring fields, but the county plan actually REDUCES the numbers of
boats in the harbor by about 1/3 of current numbers during peak season. There
are no official counts on anchored boats during peak season but previous
informal assessments (including those of the harbor advisory committee) have
placed them up to around 350 boats during the peak season. These people spend
significant dollars in the Marathon Community during this time. The County plan
eliminates significant anchorage in the harbor, restricting it to one small
field east of the bridge, and eliminating this as soon as practical. Their
currently suggested 149 moorings cover 87 acres. Doing the math, the conversion
of the 24 acre anchorage will result in a total of 189 moorings in the harbor.
No additional overnight anchorage is allowed at all, anywhere within the harbor.
During peak season then this reduces the numbers of boats from about 350 down to
189 for the season. This may or may not be desirable from an environmental point
of view, but it will have a major impact on dollars spent in local Marathon
business' during the season and should be discussed openly prior to implementing
such restrictions.
PROBLEMS WITH CHARTING OF THE CURRENT MOORING FIELDS
The mooring fields as charted on the County's plan have depths shown
incorrectly. This has been reinforced by a letter from Gregory Absten, Commander of the Marathon Power Squadron, to the County Commissioners (Absten's
office tel: 305-289-9056) advising them of the errors. The United States Power
Squadrons work with NOAA in a joint program called Cooperative Charting in order
to provide official data to government cartographers for purposes of making chart
corrections. Mr. Absten pointed out to the commissioners that many of the depths
shown in their plan are just plain wrong and will result in groundings and
possible hazardous fuel/oil spills from stranded boats. Some of the areas of the
proposed mooring fields actually have less than 1or 2 feet of water - and others
a marginal 3-5 feet. Mr. Absten offered the services of the Power Squadron to
perform a proper survey and correct these deficiencies in the county plan. We
understand that the State requires certain minimum depths prior to approval of
mooring fields. - Update 12/29/99: Mr. Absten says that the Marine
Resources department has acknowledged the chart inaccuracies and have accepted
the offer to assist with corrections.
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