There is nothing pristine about the Salt Ponds. During the 1980s it was land-filled for the condos and resorts adjacent to it today; land-filled for the airport in the 1940s. In the 1960s, it was a missile site for the Cold War. Before all that, it was a commercial source for salt. So let's get this straight up front: For more than a century, man has not been kind to the Salt Ponds.
Marine Biologist Ed Little, who is on the Salt Ponds Alliance board of directors, says there's no unusual or sacred wildlife there. Nothing special there that can be hurt by carefully managed development. You know that oxymoron: "Managed Development"— a bike path here, a visitor's center and boardwalk there, kayak eco-tours today, jet skis and t-shirt shops tomorrow. But bottom line, Mother Nature will not be unduly assaulted by the Alliance's proposed "Central Park in Key West". Dr. Jake Rutherford swears being on this board does not jeopardize his conservationist integrity. He believes an ecological/business alliance is long overdue in these parts; and that businessmen and Alliance board members like Ed Swift and Bob Tracy really can have green hearts like his. Just because Mr. Tracy developed Sunrise Suites and Dr. Rutherford owns one of the condos; just because Mr. Swift owns everything from the cruise ship transportation fleet to a half dozen tourist attractions doesn't necessarily mean there's a conflict of interest. So why, then, question this Alliance? After all, some people claim Bob Tracy "saved" the Key West Bight for the city that "saved" it from development.
You remember the Bight bond issue in 1993? City officials bought most of the waterfront property surrounding the Bight for roughly $18 million. The bond issue footed that cost and promised 35% private use, 65% public use and 3.5 acres of parks and other green space.
Today, the only green you see along the Bight boardwalk is in the form of dollar bills, or perhaps, the polluted green water from an armada of private yachts and commercial charter boats that keep getting bigger and bigger. Seems application of the bond promise got reversed: 35% is for public use, the rest is private. And there are no parks, although there is plenty of parking lots, which make a lot of people think that the City of Key West is not living up to the perimeters of the 1993 bond.
Worse, this "managed development" has expanded Duval Street into the heart of Old Town's residential neighborhood. Amplified music by day and night; traffic out of control during the winter.
In all fairness, property values have climbed, but the price paid is in direct proportion to the loss of the quality of life for residents living in the Bight area. The number of collective special events that restaurants and bars (10 by the time this rampant development finishes), shops and the new ferry terminal may sponsor outdoors is akin to having a Goombay weekend every week of the year. Until Friends and Neighbors of the Key West Bight rose up in protest at the City Commission meeting this week, the ferryboat terminal, alone, was scheduled for 12 special events. So let's get this straight. Is this a ferryboat terminal or a civic center?
And exactly what does the Key West Bight and the Salt Ponds Alliance have in common? Ed Swift, for one; he was on the advisory council that crafted the master plan for the Bight recommended to the City, which said the goals were "to preserve the historic waterfront and minimize new development." Once the bond issue passed, "historic preservation" was never mentioned again.
Bob Tracy, for two; he was the chairman of the Key West Bight Board just a few years ago and today he is chairman of the Salt Ponds Alliance. Although Mr. Tracy was probably only practicing good citizenship as the volunteer chair who helped move the Bight into the black, the Bight's success has become a black day for residents who want to live quietly in the Key West Bight neighborhood.
"I was not on the Bight board when the master plan was built; my job was to supervise the leasing," said Tracy, who has been involved with the Salt Ponds master plan. "The Salt Ponds area is 20% of the island, and nobody is doing anything with it except using it as a dumping ground where derelicts live. But it can be an urban wilderness with the wildlife totally protected."
Even if Mr. Tracy's Heart of Green is compatible with his business interest, mere association with "managed development" run amuck at the Bight is reason enough for Salt Ponds residents to be wary. The bureaucratic track record of promises initiated and promises kept is mighty thin. Comparable, too, is the way the backers of the Bight Bond Issue and the Salt Ponds Alliance have gone about garnering support. Paul and Evalena Worthington figured the Bond Issue for the Bight was a good idea until the City took their marina and fueling dock; even Bucko supported the idea. Then one day it cost him his original Waterfront Market space.
"Greg Braun of the Salt Ponds Alliance left a message on my answering machine," said Pat Rogers, president of the Key West Garden Club. "We're not a political group; we won't become entangled in controversial issues," she said, " so I didn't return Greg's call."
But without any personal contact or conversation, the Key West Garden Club was listed on the Alliance's original proposal for "managed development" in such a 's effort. Other environmental organizations like Key West's Audubon Society and the Botanical Garden were duped in a similar manner. None of these memberships officially support the effort, and such unethical practice early on sets the stage for suspicion.
In spite of all this, my biggest concern comes from the absolute lack of need for any kind of development in the Salt Ponds area. No doubt, the police need to enforce laws against dumping trash and camping out there, but if, as Mr. Little says, there's nothing in the salt ponds that you can't see elsewhere, then why rescind the City Ordinance banning commercial tours there?
At least a dozen kayak tours are offered by commercial businesses operating between Key West and Big Pine. Without offering up the Salt Ponds, lots of backcountry wildlife and Mangrove marine life are easily accessed within an hour of Key West. Of course if you're a tourist, it may take a couple of hours to gather warm bodies, distribute gear, drive to the point of embarkation, unpack kayaks, pack æem up then return again.
"I turned down the cruise shi" said Dan McConn"It takes at least four hours to educate people about the Keys ecology." Cruise ship passengers usually don't have the port time to run up to Sugarloaf Key with Mosquito Tours, but they can get in a two-hour Salt Ponds tour with Outdoor Adventure Tour or Island Kayak. These two groups offering tours in the Salt Ponds cater to the cruise ship industry, and some business leaders claim cruise passengers return to Key West later.
"`Eco-travel' is good business for Key West," they say. But eco-travel ranks right up there with "airplane food" or "managed development": oxymorons, all.
In 1989, Conde Nast Traveler sent me to Belize to write a story on travel's hottest buzzword, eco-travel. In Belize's baboon sanctuary, a howler monkey peed on my head. In my $100-a-day rented jeep, I bumped and banged along the Hummingbird Highway in Central Belize where I interviewed jaguar hunters and farmers who slash-and-burn the rainforest countryside. On Ambergris Cay, I attended a manatee barbecue, then with three other people I took a retrofitted shrimp boat 150 miles out to sea to dive into its Blue Hole. For an entire day, the sea pounded that boat with the gusto of the Chinese Olympic team on a ping pong ball.
Belize's image of rough `n rugged is shot through and through, and for one month, I dropped out of the lap of luxury as most travelers know it, right into nature at its rawest impact with mankind. Yes, I can do anything for a month, but I learned I do not want to bath in Stann River for a week; I don't want to sweat every night I'm on vacation in a palapa hut with no electricity. I am not an eco-traveler.
Real encounters with nature are often unpleasant; for sure, they do not come with limousine drivers or tour guides. In the real world of travel, there are explorers at one end; there are outrageously spoiled cruise ship passengers at the other. Somewhere in between is where Key West's economy sits.
There are travelers who like convenient encounters with nature because, well, the travel industry has brought the jungle, the Outback, the deserted deserts to the traveler through "managed development". The Everglades comes to mind. Georgia Island. The Amazon rainforest.
Although the Salt Ponds is far more accessible, it is way too small to invade in this manner. Kayaking in this not-so-pristine-but-rebirthing-because-man-hasn't-messed-with-it-for-awhile area is not eco-travel. Cruise ship passengers are not eco-travelers. No one is. So why don't we finally get one straight: Mr. Swift, Key West does not need another tourist attraction.
The City needs "managed development" in the Salt Ponds like it needs another cruise ship stirring up silt in Key West harbor.