Florida House Bill 349 (Water Resources Management) by state Rep. Toby Overdorf (R) of Palm City has support from Rep. Tyler Sirois (R) of Merritt Island and state Sen. Ana Maria Rodriguez (R) of Doral, who filed a companion, Senate Bill 198.
Rep. Overdorf is an environmental consultant who works for developers on mitigation banking and Sen. Rodriquez is the current Senior Vice President of Miami Realtors.
House Bill 349 was approved 13 – 4 by the House Environment, Agriculture and Flooding Subcommittee on December 1, 2021 and is now in the Agriculture & Natural Resources Appropriations Subcommittee.
Florida SB 198 was approved 3 – 2 by the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources on January 18, 2022 and is now in the Committee on Community Affairs.
Contact your legislators to oppose Florida House Bill 349
Rep. Randy Fine Speaks Against Florida House Bill 349
“We have a certainty of destruction and a possibility of success.”
IRL Roundtable Opposes Florida HB 349
“Florida House Bill 349 would be detrimental to the Indian River Lagoon National Estuary natural environment, inhibit ongoing restoration efforts, and greatly reduce the estuary’s intrinsic economic and recreational value to the community.”
1,000 Friends of Florida Opposes HB 349
“Florida House Bill 349 (Sirois) and SB 198 (Rodriguez) allows the Board of Trustees to establish seagrass mitigation banks in state-owned submerged lands to offset “unavoidable” loss elsewhere of seagrass from coastal development projects. This new option could lead to more seagrass destruction from development despite research showing high failure rates in projects to plant and restore seagrass.“
Friends of the Everglades: Seagrass mitigation banks – OPPOSE
“Florida House Bill 349 (Sirois) and SB 198 (Rodriguez) would authorize the state Board of Trustees to create “seagrass mitigation banks”; seagrasses would be planted on state-owned submerged lands, generating “credits” which could be sold/purchased to offset the “unavoidable” loss of seagrass due to coastal development projects elsewhere.
But the failure rate of new seagrass plantings is high, and by creating a formal mitigation mechanism, SB 198/HB 349 would in effect make coastal development easier – which could lead to even greater loss of seagrass than Florida has already seen.”
Rep. Randy Fine: Bill killing seagrass, endangering manatees is reckless
“Florida 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.”
Rep. Randy Fine: Reckless bill could endanger manatees by destroying seagrass
“… these anti-environmental advocates want to create new ways to remediate seagrass destruction, making it easier to destroy it, and as a result, increase development.”
Contact your legislators to oppose Florida House Bill 349