Long Bar Pointe needs protection from its owner, Carlos Beruff

Long Bar

Pointe needs

Beruff block

Manatee County wouldn't let developer Carlos Beruff do as he pleased at Long Bar Pointe, so he's gone to the Department of Environmental Protection for a permit to declare his coastline a mitigation bank.

He's been talking to DEP for 18 months, and local government didn't know. Not a good sign.

Developers buy "credits" in a mitigation bank to recreate natural systems in one place so they can destroy them elsewhere. Each credit is worth up to $200,000.

Mr. Beruff wants 21.6 credits, but he'll do little for the environment. The permit includes a conservation easement granted to DEP, not Manatee County, so enforcement would be far away.

The permit would pay Mr. Beruff to do things the county would make him do for free and could lead to things the county has told him not to do. He'd remove exotic vegetation, supposedly to help seagrasses and mangroves, for which he'd claim most of his credits. The county would require him to remove exotics for nothing.

The only other thing he'd do for seagrass is post 12 signs in the bay. Cost: $5,250. Credits: around $1 million. Nice return on investment.

The permit would pay him to trim mangroves, not to improve them but to improve the view from the housing development he plans behind them.

The mitigation bank also is split by a narrow channel from the bay through the mangroves to a water body Mr. Beruff plans to dredge as part of his development. He calls it an "estuary enhancement."

You thought the marina idea was dead? Apparently Mr. Beruff disagrees.

Long Bar Pointe is the last intact shoreline ecosystem on Sarasota Bay. Mitigation banks are supposed to restore degraded places, not degrade pristine places.

Long Bar Pointe doesn't need mitigation. It needs protection, mostly from its owner.

Stuart Smith

Bradenton

This story was originally published February 8, 2016 at 2:36 PM with the headline "Long Bar Pointe needs protection from its owner, Carlos Beruff ."