3/20 Update: The 3/25 meeting has been postponed. This tool is still available if you'd like to provide additional comments to FDEP. Stay tuned for more details.

Use this tool to take action and send an email urging the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) to strengthen the plan, not make it weaker.

Then, Please join us to demand a stronger Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves Management Plan!

• When: March 25 meeting postponed. Meeting will likely be held in Mid-May.
• Where: FIU Biscayne Bay Campus Wolfe University Center, 3000 NE 151st St, North Miami Beach FL 33181
• What to Expect: Learn about the plan and an opportunity for public comment. You can also email comments to biscayne.bay@dep.state.fl.us

The Issue: FDEP has recently shared their draft management plan for the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves (BBAP). This management plan is only updated once a decade and lays out strategies and objectives for protecting and restoring Biscayne Bay. As the BBAP citizen support organization, it is the mission of Friends of Biscayne Bay to implement the goals in this doc. However, this management plan is significantly weakened compared to the current plan from 2012. Some deficiencies include:

• This plan lacks any metrics of progress made since the 2012 plan.
• Surprisingly, the budget quoted was only 17% that of the 2012 management plan. This amount is entirely insufficient to run the aquatic preserves and manage over 60,000 acres of submerged lands.
• We'd also like to see clearer accounting behind the budget figures, some of which are drastically reduced or disappear without notice or explanation.
• In our comments, we also refute claims by DEP that over 4,000 acres of the BBAP are subject to reduced protections due to legislative changes (pink area on map below). Given it is the 50th anniversary of the BBAP, why are we backsliding on progress?

Read the draft BBAP management plan here and our current BBAP management plan here.

Read Friends of Biscayne Bay's comments here on the issues with the draft BBAP Management plan, including a detailed analysis on what appropriate budget line items would look like.

In conclusion, this plan is weaker than our current plan and we have the opportunity to make it stronger.

Thank you,

Map of the Biscayne Bay Aquatic Preserves (blue and pink). The Preserves protect over 64,000 acres of Biscayne Bay from overfishing, dredging, and pollution.