Walton aims to conserve habitat

DeFUNIAK SPRINGS - Walton County officials are putting the final touches on the first draft of the county's habitat-conservation plan, which the federal government has required to mitigate damages caused by seawalls erected after Hurricane Dennis.

Billy McKee, the county's environmental planning manager, said he hopes to have a draft ready to disseminate to county commissioners sometime in the next few weeks.

"This plan belongs to the county," he said, explaining that federal law requires that Walton County officials provide "a plan to show how we're going to deal with protecting (animal) species."

The goal of the conservation plan is to strike a balance between the public's ability to enjoy the beach and protecting the habitat that turtles and other wildlife require.

"There's no sense in having a beach that attracts people and to enjoy what we have" if the regulations that eventually are adopted are too prohibitive, McKee said. "The beaches are Walton County's ‘crown jewel,' " but at the same time, "we want to protect the (animal) species."

The federal government required the plan to mitigate damage caused by the seawalls, which were erected after Hurricane Dennis struck Northwest Florida four years ago, and which also violated the federal Endangered Species Act.

The plan "is a required element of the application for an incidental take permit the county has applied to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concerning future emergency armoring in Walton County and impacts to federally protected species," said Lorna Patrick, a biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.

Those species are nesting sea turtles, the Choctawhatchee beach mouse and the non-breeding piping plover.

Part of the conservation plan involves the hotly contested lighting ordinance over which business and private property owners and
environmentalists have been battling for the last two years.

That ordinance aims to regulate everything from what types of lights can be used on the beach to how visible the sources of light must be from the shoreline to standards for new building construction.

"In the draft document we're working with right now, one of the sections in there talks about the different factors that affect species on the beach," McKee said.

Those factors include everything from bonfires and other sources of artificial light, as well as cats and dogs, buildings, and recreational equipment that is left on the beach overnight.

Although a ban on bonfires did come up during discussions, the ban is not actively being pursued - especially since any problems bonfires create for the turtles are minor compared with the bright floodlights shining from beachfront businesses and private properties.

"It is a known scientific principle that artificial light, and that includes fire, does affect turtles ... . A fire could be a disorientation to a
sea turtle, so it does need to be properly addressed by the beach activities ordinance," he said.

However, McKee also said that only about 17 bonfire permits are issued each year.

Kevin Hargett, the county's code-enforcement coordinator, said last week that the office is continuing to issue permits.

Anyone who wishes to obtain one must fill out a form at the code-enforcement office, located at the South Walton Courthouse Annex in Santa Rosa Beach.