Like many of you, I remain incredibly troubled by the staggering loss of seagrass in our estuary. It has had real consequences. Since 2009, we’ve lost around 46,000 acres of natural seagrass. As a result, the Indian River Lagoon has been ground zero in the deaths of hundreds of manatees who starved because they could not find enough seagrass, their key food source.
Yet even in the face of these staggering losses, politicians in Tallahassee have introduced legislation this session that will make it even easier to destroy what little natural seagrass we have left. House Bill 349 would create a program to allow developers to pay money so that they can dig up and destroy the remaining natural seagrass in Brevard (or other coastal areas) with the hope that it can be regrown someplace else, possibly the Panhandle or the Gulf Coast.
Source: Florida Today Opinion Article by Randy Fine