turtle watch volunteer arrested

Just after 6 this morning!!

When you go to the other four pictures, the one with the big hole dug you will note the sun just coming over the top of the home in the Retreat. Sun rises about quarter to six. I did that intentionally, because I doubt someone ran out there and started digging at 5 to beat sunup. It was dug at least the day before.

I wouldn't blame all this on tourists. I would guess there are owners who come down to their summer home once the kids are out of school.

I spoke with Tracy Louthain from the TDC yesterday and she said the county is in the process of rewriting "Leave No Trace," and hopes are that the program will be reinstated soon (let's hope before someone gets hurt from the garbage left on the beach or before the end of turtle season). There was a lawsuit brought against the County from a condominium (sorry no details if it was an owner or an association), so they are doing a rewrite. Crossing there T's and dotting their i's this go-round I'm guessing.
The future will bring Code Enforcement as the enforcers of the "Leave No Trace" program, and the TDC will have what Tracy called "Ambassadors" combing the beaches each day and educating the beach goers.

One more time !

Hope that darned old constitution doesn't get in the way again.

The Ambassadors is a new twist - Why not call them "Beach Czars" - seems to be a popular thing right now - Pay Czars, Bike Path Czars and the like.

I'm going to predict that this thread will set a new SoWal record for the most views and comments--and it will do it before the month is out.

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If people did the right thing in the first place, there wouldn't be need for legislation.

Actually it's an old idea that the TDC tried a few years back. Volunteers would be trained to educate visitors on the beach. There were calls for folks to give a few hours a week to do it. Unfortunatelly getting enough volunteers was the problem.
I think this might be a solution until the ordinance is approved.

I think if you remove all the legislation and let the locals run the show, we would get the trash off the beach much quicker. I say about one week and this issue would be resolved.

I agree....my solution is to declare everything left on the beach between 7pm and 6am as "booty" -- free for the pickin'. Call it the "Move-it or Lose-it" program; post it on signs and have a banner plane fly over the beaches each evening at 6:50pm. Savvy entrepreneurs will be lined up at the beach entrances each night like ladies at Macys on Dec 26. The beaches will be cleared of junk every night at 7:05pm...problem solved.

I agree....my solution is to declare everything left on the beach between 7pm and 6am as "booty" -- free for the pickin'. Call it the "Move-it or Lose-it" program; post it on signs and have a banner plane fly over the beaches each evening at 6:50pm. Savvy entrepreneurs will be lined up at the beach entrances each night like ladies at Macys on Dec 26. The beaches will be cleared of junk every night at 7:05pm...problem solved.

I agree. Some enterprising folks will invest their time and energy and vehicles collecting all this crap without destroying it, and then reselling it for a profit. All we need is the ordinance in place, the government can step out of it after that. Unless someone is actively using the property, it is considered abandoned after 7 pm.

Private property owners should have the option of permitting their stuff, as long as they can prove that it is safely anchored and will not become an airborne missile or otherwise hazardous to public safety. Permitted objects need to be clearly marked, and private property owners need some sort of option for legal recourse if their property is mistakenly taken. And they should be required to insure it, as they would any other personal property. I know, these are the tricky, sticky points, but I also know a solution can be found, it might just take a bit of compromise on EVERYONE'S part.

I love the turtles, but we need to leave them out of it. It seemed like a smart idea to bring mice and turtles and all sorts of endangered species into all of these environmental arguments a couple decades ago, because it gets the governments attention and funding... but the real problem is the narcissistic, egotistical and disrespectful attitudes that have developed and are prevalent in our society today. It seems everyone has forgotten how to be respectful of all the rest of the people sharing this planet, and if we can't respect each other, we certainly aren't going to be able to respect a turtle or a mouse.

We ALL deserve a little piece of this beach paradise, each and every one of us. Owners, renters, locals, tourists, rich, poor, people, turtles... The only price is to treat it with respect. Yet so many today are such gluttons they have no idea how to gracefully accept that little piece, and respectfully share the rest with everyone else.

Those photos are sickening, I had no idea it was so bad. I stopped for several groups of people today crossing from the south side to the north side of 30A, carrying floaties and chairs and wheeling wagons full of stuff back home with them. I wanted to get out and hug each one of them.

I think if you remove all the legislation and let the locals run the show, we would get the trash off the beach much quicker. I say about one week and this issue would be resolved.

I think a little proactive message is also appropriate. Until the new ordinance is written and approved, I am sending out (and have been since I received it in the mail several weeks ago) the attached document to EVERY renter that stays at our property. I feel it's my job to get them this information. I send them this and the Seymour Safety crab flyer, among other items. It's a cruddy copy, as my scanner is not the best, but it gets the point across. Hopefully. Feel free to use this for your renters as well.

Here's a photo I took near the Draper Lake Outfall just after 6 this morning. Click on the picture and it will take you to a larger image as well as four other pictures also taken this morning on my turtle walk. I didn't know how to dump all 5 photos in here at once.

Just after 6 this morning!!

What kind of moron takes a pool ??

That's like taking sand to the beach.

At any rate, the county will need a lot of trucks when they finally decide to haul off this junk.

As has been pointed out I am bit bothered by the no bid contract to turtle watch. Especially when I find out that in 2007, $43,143 was paid out of the $80K I am assuming that they received that year in employee compensation. And that those dollars did not appear to go to volunteers who are giving their hours walking up and down the beach trying to save the turtles, but actually went to 3 members of the board of directors of the organization. Personally, I think something is fishy, and it ain't the turtles.


Those dollars should be going directly to getting more people on the beaches to accomplish their mission. That would be some change I could believe in.