The Okaloosa County Board of Commissioners unanimously voted Tuesday to repeal Ordinance 15-14, eliminating a vessel exclusion zone at Crab Island that has proven costly to maintain and no longer serves its original purpose.

• During the public hearing, Mike Norberg, Okaloosa County Coastal Resource Manager, explained that the zone was originally established in 2015 “in an effort to provide an unrestricted corridor for emergency services to be able to get in and out of Crab Island in the event of an emergency.”

“But over the years we’ve seen some shifting sands that have made it very shallow and actually very difficult for vessels to pass through,” Norberg told the commissioners. “It’s also been a maintenance burden. We’ve spent, over the last 10 or so years, over $100,000 just trying to repair, replace, and maintain buoys and hardware out in this area.”

The exclusion zone, approximately 40 feet wide by 1,500 feet long and marked by 32 “No Boat” buoys, prohibited vessels from anchoring within the designated area. According to the agenda item, the zone has become “inefficient and unnecessary relative to its original intent” due to strong currents and shifting sands.

Norberg said the county reached out to local emergency services, including the Sheriff’s Office, Destin Fire, and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, who would have been the primary users of the corridor.

• “They’ve all expressed that they haven’t used the zone in a number of years,” Norberg said. “Destin Fire, for example, have jet skis and they tend to be able to get in and out of the traffic in the area regardless of the position of the vessel exclusion zone.”

The agenda item noted that emergency responders capable of navigating shallow waters are “nimble enough to move throughout the crowds,” while most local emergency vessels cannot use the corridor due to draft limitations. Additionally, private boaters who occasionally use the corridor to access the center of Crab Island’s activity area can create hazards when swimmers are present.

Despite consulting with industry experts and testing various designs to prevent buoy loss, no method proved successful. One example cited in the agenda item described how an industrial shock-absorbing device designed for buoys led to increased prop strike damage to anchoring hardware, while shortening the scope resulted in higher hardware and buoy failures due to extreme forces.

Commissioner Carolyn Ketchel, who made the motion to repeal the ordinance, noted that the zone splits her district. “We did it out of good faith, hoping to be able to save more lives or create a way to get to people safely, but it’s not working out,” Ketchel said. 

Norberg said county staff will work with a local contractor to remove the buoys and hardware “as soon as possible.” The county will also coordinate with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Boating & Waterways group to update appropriate boating safety zone permits to reflect this change.