Studer Community Institute

Column: Fish hatchery's part in the puzzle

March 26, 2014
/ Shannon Nickinson
/ community-dashboard

GUEST COLUMN -- Grover C. Robinson IV is the District 4 Escambia County Commissioner who was first elected in 2006. He has developed expertise related to financial compensation programs that flow from the 2010 BP oil spill. His guest column begins below: Ben Skaggs with the Environmental Protection Agency said it best when discussing all the different components of BP related money -- “It is like a four-dimensional puzzle.” As with most puzzles any individual piece can look odd and relatively unimportant unless you view the finished product. Then its absence is glaring.

One such piece of the BP puzzle is the fish hatchery. When examined on its own, it does appear odd and out of place; however, it was never intended to be on its own. Rather, it is simply one part of a much larger puzzle that includes not only NRDA (Natural Resource Damage Assessment) but RESTORE, NFWF (National Fish & Wildlife Foundation) and other BP-related monies. The cover picture of the puzzle looks more like an estuary that will benefit from a series of RESTORE and NFWF projects related to stormwater, septic replacement, habitat enhancement and conservation. In addition, you will also see a renewed emphasis on economic diversification centered around research as we attempt to move Escambia County forward in generating income from our brains. Shortly after the spill, Dick Snyder from the University of West Florida came to the county and said the best thing we could do was obtain a National Estuary Plan, which nearly every estuary south of the Big Bend on the Florida Gulf Coast has. These plans identify ways to repair restore waterways. Unfortunately, the federal government no longer has that program. With the advent of RESTORE, the individual counties have been working with the Nature Conservancy to prepare watershed plans that act similarly to National Estuary Plans. I often refer to them as a poor-man’s NEP. The plans that are already forming in those watershed groups will be the basis for projects that can be picked by the state for funding from RESTORE or NFWF. At the same time there is also a concerted effort to diversify the economy with more research. An element that has been working for some time came to public light recently with the partnering of UWF and the National Seashore. It is hoped that this partnership can work together with other such partnerships across the Florida Gulf Coast to begin to establish our region as a leader in water research. It is hoped, too, that the hatchery can combine both the improvements in water quality and habitat restoration, with the research component to move our county forward toward true restoration both economic and environmental. Again this is the final product we are attempting to create in Escambia County with the BP monies. Unfortunately, certain pieces get placed when they do by the cycle of BP negotiations and not logic; however, it is equally important that we stay focused on what we want to accomplish. Remember a puzzle isn’t solved if a piece is missing.

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Column: Fish hatchery's part in the puzzle

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