The removal of mangroves at one canalfront Anna Maria property has been cleared by the state.

A Dec. 22, 2023, inspection by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection found that Mason Martin, the contractor that performed the mangrove removal at 111 Gull Drive, Anna Maria, was within the footprint of exempt activity.

The 1996 Florida Department of Environmental Protection Mangrove Trimming and Preservation Act establishes regulations to protect coastal vegetation.

Mangroves provide environmental benefits, including offering a unique ecosystem for marine life, decreasing land erosion and improving nearshore water quality.

The law sets standards for trimming mangroves and most alterations require DEP permitting.

The property at 111 Gull Drive is owned by Massachusetts-based Sharp Development LLC, which purchased it last year for $1,890,000 and demolished the existing home.

The city received complaints about the removal of mangroves at the property Dec. 4, 2023, and, upon inspection, staff found Mason Martin removing the vegetation — work proposed under an application for a building permit to construct a seawall.

The city posted a stop work order at the property Dec. 6 for unpermitted work.

After receiving complaints Dec. 13 that work had resumed, city staff revisited the property and found the stop work order missing and the contractor removing mangroves.

The city reposted the stop work order and, as of Jan. 12, work to remove the remaining mangroves at the site had yet to resume.

During the downtime, DEP inspectors Alyssa Reis and Maggie Kratzer conducted a site inspection due to “several complaints” alleging unauthorized mangrove removal at the property, according to the department’s report.

However, the DEP had cleared the mangroves for removal in a Sept. 19, 2022, letter to the property owner that verified “that the construction of an approximately 116-linear foot seawall with a 2-foot-wide concrete cap, as well as 815 square feet of backfill to level the property, was exempt from requiring authorization from the department.”

DEP inspectors found during their visit that about 67 linear feet of mangroves had been removed from the shoreline, leaving about 49 feet of mangrove fringe.

That work was deemed to be within the footprint of the previously verified exemption, according to the DEP report.

The inspectors did find a couple of issues with the project when construction began, such as the lack of protective barriers and permitting from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“During the site inspection, it was observed that no erosion control devices were installed on the property and loose sedimentation was present throughout the property,” the report states….

DEP staff contacted the contractor following the inspection to request the installation of erosion control devices and by Dec. 28 the contractor had set up a silt fence and turbidity barrier along the impacted shoreline.

Work on the project also began without permitting from the Corps, which regulates the discharge of fill into U.S. waters, not the removal of protected species like mangroves.

“If removal of a mangrove, cypress, pine tree, etc. results in a discharge of fill into waters of the U.S., the Corps regulates that discharge, not the species removal,” David Ruderman, from USACE’s Jacksonville office, wrote in a Jan. 11 email to The Islander.

According to the DEP report, the contractor has submitted a permit application for the activity at the property, but the USACE had yet to approve it.

“The department notified the property owner that they should continue to coordinate with USACE and to not continue construction until a USACE authorization is obtained,” the report states.

“Our permitting staff continue to coordinate with FDEP and monitor the situation,” Ruderman wrote. “It’s still a work in progress.”

City options?

At a Jan. 11 Anna Maria meeting, Commissioner Charlie Salem commended those who reported the work at 111 Gull Drive to the city.

“The fact that we’ve got an active community of people who are on the lookout for things like this, I think speaks to the health of the community and it’s really important for people to feel like they can do that,” he said.

In the face of the state’s allowance of such activity, Salem encouraged the city to explore options for taking back authority to regulate mangrove removal and trimming from the DEP.

There are seven municipalities in Florida that have delegation over mangrove removal and trimming regulations. Those include the city of Sanibel and Sarasota and Pinellas counties.

Salem acknowledged the city would need to hire additional staff to handle the mangrove trimming and removal permitting process, but suggested partnering with the other island cities to establish an islandwide system and share costs.

He said mangroves are a key part in filtering and cleaning local waters, which he called the “lifeblood” of the island, so he believed it was important to protect them.

“It’s important to me and I hope it’s important to the community to see what more we can do to encourage responsible stewardship of our mangroves,” Salem said.

Commission Chair Mark Short said Salem’s suggestion might be worth pursuing.

“I don’t disagree,” Short said. “It is vital to our waterways, and I think most of the people that live here would rather see the mangroves there than not.”

While mangrove regulations are preempted to the state, Mason Martin might face repercussions from the city’s Local Construction Regulation Board for willingly violating the municipal building code by ignoring an official stop-work order.

The city’s LCRB can deny, suspend or revoke the authority of a certified contractor to obtain a building permit or limit such authority to obtaining a permit or permits with specific conditions.

Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy wrote in a Jan. 4 email to The Islander that the LCRB is an ad-hoc board that only meets when there are cases to be heard and no meetings have been scheduled.