September 2022 Advocacy Report
By: MIASF Staff
Date posted: Sep 21, 2022 Wed
This month, Florida Inland Navigation District (FIND) held their annual meeting in Fort Lauderdale and our county’s commissioner, Frank Gernert from Safe Harbor LMC organized a public outreach tour of the New River. Assistant city manager, Anthony Fajardo, was also on board to join the tour of the New River with FIND. This was a great opportunity to introduce and educate FIND on the importance of the navigability to and from the boatyards at the head of the river. A maintenance dredge was proposed to be included when the plan to dredge the Dania Canal and ICW was made by the commission. Funding for this maintenance dredge project is available, however, it is necessary to have a local agency/government take the lead. MIASF will be discussing the possibilities with the City of Fort Lauderdale at the regular meetings the new city manager, Greg Chavarria, has coordinated with the marine industry and relevant city staff to keep current on our issues.
Navigability of the New River and continued encroachment into the channel was highlighted last week when a barge working at Bradford Marine could not make the return trip down New River without first coordinating with the vessel docked on the river to move in order not to risk hitting it. Navigability concerns remains high on MIASF’s radar as we work to continue to advocate for our industry and its businesses.
The good working relationship the marine industry enjoys with the US Coast Guard was emphasized this week when a vessel arrived without submitting the correct paperwork. In an effort to resolve without aggressive enforcement, USCG reached out to MIASF for contact information of the captain and together with IYBA we were able to find the captain and he was immediately in touch with the correct officer to resolve the issue. Associations in other areas of the country are reporting they do not always have the close communication South Florida enjoys.
The election of 3 new City of Fort Lauderdale Commissioners in November is important to MIASF and as a result we are dedicating a day for leadership to meet with the candidates and get to know them and give them an opportunity to learn about the marine industry and of its economic impact as an important part the community.