Taking a boat ride around Key West, you can't help but notice how crowded and built up our shoreline is: hotels, condos, marinas, Navy installations— you name it. Amidst so much development, most people have no idea how Key West's shores once looked.
But there is still a place where you can catch a glimpse of Key West's past natural shoreline. This stretch of land, formerly known as "the Berg property," is located at 1700 Atlantic Boulevard. For years local citizens fought tirelessly to prevent the property from being turned into the kind of condos that line the rest of Atlantic Boulevard. Finally, after years of struggle, the parcel was purchased for conservation purposes by the Trust for Public Land, which turned it over to the City of Key West last year.
The property is an environmental treasure. The beach has been the site of sea turtle nests in past years. The wetlands between Atlantic Boulevard and the beach have a yearly cycle of wetness and dryness depending on the rain and the upwelling of salt water. When the berm on the ocean side is intact, the brackish mix of salt and fresh water provides a constantly changing ecosystem. This is essential habitat for many kinds of native birds and an important stopover for many more migratory species in the spring and fall. The wetlands also act as a natural stormwater retaining pond, absorbing rainwater from the surface of Atlantic Boulevard. This not only provides flood relief for the adjacent neighborhoods, but also filters out petroleum and other pollutants before the water reaches the ocean.
Over the years, the property has experienced many changes. You can still find cow's teeth on the beach from the slaughterhouse that was once on a pier there. The pieces of broken glass and crockery that appear in the sand after storms are reminders of a long-ago trash dump. When I lived nearby on Josephine Street in the 1970's that stretch of beach was our park— the place we went to walk, meet neighbors and look at the sky and water. More recently, the property was the informal home of a number of Key West's homeless people.
Now, while the threat of further development has been averted, the future of the property remains unclear. When the City recently unveiled its management plan for the parcel, several of its provisions provoked intense public outcry. Among these were plans for a ten-foot wide paved road through the property from Atlantic Boulevard nearly to the water, to provide access to the beach for seaweed removal and "emergencies." But the whole idea behind the purchase of the property was to preserve it as a natural area, which runs counter to the ideas of building a paved road and removing natural materials that wash up on the shore. The original vision was for a handicapped-accessible boardwalk, which would be less intrusive and would discourage use by scooters and other motorized vehicles.
Another concern involved the City's physical alteration of the property, projects that no private citizen could get away with on their own land. During Hurricane Georges, a city employee used heavy equipment to break through the berm on the property. The resulting salt water intrusion killed a lot of vegetation, and it's hard to tell how much of the damage would have been averted had the berm not been deliberately breached. The cleanup of dead trees following the storm made the place look like a war zone.
Following a public meeting focusing on these and other concerns, the City is preparing to draft a new management plan for the property. Concerned citizens can send comments to Annalise Mannix-Lachner of the City Engineering Services Department, City Hall, 525 Angela Street. A copy of the management plan is available by calling Nancy Frazier at 292-8229 at the City Planning Department. Take a few minutes to let the City know that our last stretch of natural beach should be kept that way, without roads, seaweed removal, ornamental plantings or any of the other flawed ideas considered in the original management plan.