MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – A battle between boat dwellers and a city commissioner is brewing in Miami Beach.
Since December, access to the shore has dwindled while code enforcement and cameras have increased.
“It’s sort of chaos on the water,” freshman Commissioner David Saurez told Local 10 News Environmental Advocate Louis Aguirre as they looked at the boats in the water from the Miami Beach Baywalk.
Since he was sworn into office three months ago, Suarez has made this issue his top priority, gaining support from the Miami Beach City Commission and some concerned residents.
“The biggest damage is just the debris floating in the water – any time there’s a big wind event, plastic, and Styrofoam is my biggest concern,” said West Avenue Neighborhood Association President Tim Carr. “We are responsible citizens on land; I would ask people on the water to do the same.”
Boaters are protected by state law and are allowed to moor anywhere in Florida unless otherwise legislated. That means the city can’t necessarily force them to move.
Current legislation only limits anchoring in densely-populated areas which include: Sunset Lake, in addition to the sections of Biscayne Bay lying between Rivo Alto Island and Di Lido Island, San Marino Island and San Marco Island, and San Marco Island and Biscayne Island. In these areas, MBPD can legally ask a vessel to leave a half hour after sunset.
Otherwise, vessels can legally anchor as long as they don’t obstruct a navigable channel or access to a resident’s home.
“We’re very limited as a municipal government on regulation on what we can do,” Saurez explained. “And we’re doing everything we can to discourage this.”
One of the ways Miami Beach has limited access to land was removing a city-owned dock on the Collins Canal, located off Dade Boulevard. The dock has been a point of contention because it is located across from a Publix where boat dwellers regularly come to buy food. That lifeline has been cut off.
The only free and legal access for the boat dwellers is the dinghy dock on Purdy Ave, along Sunset Harbour.
There, tying up is limited to 20 minutes. As a result, these residents of the water rely on others to drop them off and pick them back up when they’re done shopping.
“It makes it a lot (more) difficult,” said boater Carlos Leon. “We still have to go to Publix and now we have to jump like rats over the wall.”
Leon is the organizer of the Miami Beach Boaters Association, a group of 80 people who organized to push back against the city’s efforts.
“They’re trying to make us criminals, to be like this is too hard, let’s move,” Leon said.
The back and forth between Suarez and Leon specifically has reached several boiling points, most notably on Jan. 25. That’s when a body-worn camera from a Miami Beach police marine patrol officer captured the two arguing near the Purdy Dock at Maurice Gibb Park.
“Stop harassing, talk to your people and we can get–,” Leon was heard saying before he was interrupted by Suarez.
“I guess your definition of harassment is different from my definition of harassment,” Suarez responded.
The determined commissioner said that the pressure is needed, because the health of Biscayne Bay is dependent on it.
“A big concern for these boats is that they never move,” Suarez explained. “And when they never move, they don’t have anywhere to pump their sewage, so they pump it into the bay.”
Local 10 News joined officers from the Miami Beach police’s marine patrol and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as they investigated if human waste was being properly contained and disposed from the vessels that have long been anchored in this portion of Biscayne Bay.
“They’ll put a device in the toilet and they’ll see if the waste is actually going inside of the bay,” Officer Christopher Bess, a Miami Beach Police Department spokesperson, said ahead of the investigation. “Which is a violation and they will be cited.”
Of the 39 vessels tested that night, only two failed and were indeed cited.
“We normally have pretty decent compliance,” Sgt. Duane Rezende, an MBPD marine patrol office, said. “We saw today [that] we had just one or two that were in violation.”
Data from the Miami Beach chapter of the Surfrider Foundation also counteracts the concerns about human waste in the bay.
Since 2021 the non-profit’s Blue Water Task Force has been testing for the presence of fecal bacteria, or enterococcus, in Sunset Harbour. It’s one of the nine sites in Biscayne Bay that the organization frequently monitors.
“This is one of our lower [fecal matter] locations in all of Biscayne Bay,” explained Blue Water Task Force Lab Director Christi LeMahieu. “What the data tells us about this area is that it is not the boats, the only time we really see high results here is when there’s a sewage spill or construction.”
“I do not dump waste into the water, I do not know anybody out here that does,” Charter Boat Captain Micah Plummer told Local 10′s Louis Aguirre as he showed him his 53-foot sailboat.
Plummer has been living in the harbor for six years and believes that for the most part, the community is filled with good people who’ve made these boats their home.
“Everybody out here, most of them are professionals, and they’re doing their best to make sure that boats are clean and tidy,” Plummer explained. “Of course, you’ve got a couple of people out here that don’t care as much.”
Those bad apples are who Commissioner Suarez calls squatters on the water. He says many of these vessels are barely seaworthy, and that he has the videos and pictures to prove it.
“I think it’s time for you to move on, and stop destroying our bay,” Suarez said.
But the boaters that Local 10 News spoke to say they have no intentions of going anywhere.
“This is my home,” Leon expressed. “I’m willing to fight.”
The city of Miami Beach is currently in the process of discussing a compromise in the form of a mooring field, which is still more than a year from coming into existence.
On Tuesday, the city shared the latest conceptual drawings and draft management plan for the $2.3 million project during a public meeting.
To review those drawings or to offer comments on the plan, visit their website. The public comment period runs now through March 21.