A ferry ran aground off Key West in 2016. Now the company owes the government $2.2M
A company that runs a ferry service from Key West to Southwest Florida has agreed to pay the government $2.2 million after one of its boats damaged the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary in 2016.
Key West Express will pay $2,246,596, according to a proposed consent decree filed at U.S. District Court in Key West.
The money goes to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
NOAA is required to use it to restore injured seagrasses in the sanctuary, according to the public affairs office of the U.S. Department of Justice.
“That amount will fully fund the restoration of sanctuary resources ... and also covers NOAA’s costs of assessing the injuries and administering the project,” wrote a lawyer with the Environmental Enforcement Section of the U.S. DOJ, in a motion filed Wednesday.
Most of the settlement payment — $2.17 million — will pay for restoration of the damaged sanctuary resources, which include a seagrass bank dominated by turtle grass seagrasses along with other seagrass species, sponges and various fish species, according to the consent decree.
Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary protects 3,800 square miles of waters surrounding the Florida Keys.
In addition, Key West Express will pay about $70,000 for assessment costs incurred by NOAA.
On Wednesday, the government asked the court to approve the consent decree. The motion was unopposed by Key West Express.
It is now up to U.S. District Court Senior Judge James Lawrence King to decide whether to make the decree a final order. An attorney for Key West Express did not return a phone message or email seeking comment.
On Dec. 27, 2016, the Big Cat Express, a 136-foot jet-powered catamaran ferry, ran aground in the sanctuary, which is managed by NOAA.
The ferry, carrying 171 passengers, was on its way from Key West to Marco Island and had left at 5 p.m., according to reports by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. A witness gave FWC photos of the grounding.
“The photographs show a massive amount of sand, seagrass, and other sea bottom being sent backwards from its jet wash,” the agency reported.
The grounding happened at the south entrance to Lakes Passage off Key West about two miles west of Wisteria Island.
Once aground, the ferry boat operator powered off the flat back into the channel, according to a witness.
Boat captain James Leonard said he saw black smoke billowing from the transom of the ferry boat.
“It was horrible to sit and watch the grass and mud being churned up from the ferry boat,” wrote Leonard in a witness statement to the state wildlife agency. “The sea life, the turtle grass and sea sponges being scalped from the ocean floor. Total devastation!”
The ferry boat operator made the wrong decision trying to force the boat off the flat, Leonard told FWC. He said the sight made him sick to his stomach.
The ferry’s captain, Gordon G. Young, told FWC he had been running the ferry boat for a little over a year and had made about 100 trips.
Young, FWC reported, said he was pushed out of the channel to the south and ran up on “that bank and had to make a K-turn to get back into the channel.”
Asked why, Young said parasailing boats were in his way.
Young told FWC, “There was no malintent.”
The government filed the complaint against Key West Express on Aug. 24. The consent decree was filed the next day.
This story was originally published October 9, 2020 at 11:30 AM.
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