SPEAK OUT & SHOW UP

FOR CLEAN WATER

This Wednesday, July 23:

Special Meeting to Determine Fate of Key West’s Water Quality Program

One of Key West’s only water quality protections is in jeopardy! Our ecosystem needs your voice!

Long Story Short: The City of Key West is about to take a vote on its Water Quality Program designed to protect our waters from damage caused by cruise ships.

Unless we can make a difference NOW, it’s expected the City will vote for a program that:

• Doesn’t monitor for cruise ship impacts

• Is run by an organization funded by Pier B, the private cruise ship terminal.

  
  

Scroll to the end to see how YOU can make a difference TODAY!

The Backstory:

City law (Code Section 80-2) requires Key West to monitor water quality and report cruise ship-related pollution violations to state and federal agencies. If cruise ships result in too many water quality violations, the State and Federal permits to continue operating the cruise ship terminal could be ended.

Since 2022, the monitoring program was carried out by the College of the Florida Keys (CFK). But in November 2024, CFK reported 32 cruise ship-related turbidity events that violated EPA standards — events that stirred up as much sediment as a hurricane and triggered cascading ecological harm.

The City’s response? Instead of addressing the violations as required by law, it cut ties with the College, refusing to renew their agreement. The College was forced to remove its monitoring equipment from the City-owned harbor, ending continuous oversight and making it harder to track cruise ship pollution.

Why?

It’s impossible to say exactly why the City is doing this. However, public records tell an interesting story: behind the scenes, the owner of Pier B (Key West’s private cruise ship terminal) had been pressuring the City to end the partnership with the College. He threw his support behind Mote Marine Laboratory, a Sarasota-based nonprofit to which he has pledged millions in donations. Mote also pressured the City to end the partnership with the College and open the program up to new operators. It also has a history of taking money from big industry polluters.

Now what’s happening?

Fast forward to now, and the City has released a flawed and questionable Request for Proposals to find a new operator to carry out water quality monitoring.  There are a lot of issues with the RFP, but the biggest ones are:

1. The RFP doesn’t comply with the City’s own legal requirements to test for violations caused by cruise ships - even though that’s the entire point of the program!

   
   

2. The anticipated winner of the contract is Mote Marine Laboratories - the Pier B-backed organization with a mountain of conflicts of interest:

While Mote is a well-respected organization, Mote:

• Has been pledged up to $1.5 million in annual donations from Pier B

• Receives $50,000 per year from Pier B as a requirement of its lease with the state;  if too many water quality violations are found, the permits could be revoked Mote will lose $$

• Was gifted space by the Pier B owner for its first Key Largo campus

• Incorrectly claimed “local vendor” status in its bid, receiving scoring advantages that still haven’t been corrected

• Was already awarded $300,000+ in no-bid City contracts for cruise ship-related coral monitoring and restoration

  
  

  
  

No disrespect to Mote – science costs money. But this is a clear conflict of interest. Weirder still, City Legal and Finance staff are refusing to acknowledge that there is any conflict of interest.

Let’s be real: Does it make sense for a cruise ship water quality monitoring program to:

• NOT monitor for issues caused by cruise ships?

  
  

• Be run by a group funded by the cruise ship industry?

No! And this is too important to get wrong:

Turbidity isn’t just an underwater dust cloud – it’s a major threat to an ecosystem that is struggling to stay alive.

The good news? It’s not over yet.

You can make a difference NOW:

A Special City Commission meeting to award the monitoring contract is scheduled for 5 PM this Wednesday, July 23 at Key West City Hall.

Email/call your City Commissioners and attend the meeting to say:

Any contract signed by the City for water quality monitoring MUST require the program to:

• Perform testing for suspended turbidity associated with cruise ships

• Perform testing in the harbor and the ship channel where cruise ships operate

• Perform testing from the City-owned “Yellowman” structure, which is close enough to the cruise ship harbor to test for cruise ship impacts

• Be performed by an independent provider without financial ties to the cruise ship industry.

If the City cannot accomplish this under the existing RFP, we call on the City to  reject the current bids and restart the process, with a clean, conflict-free RFP that:

• Requires bids to meet the minimum standards required by our Code

  
  

• Establishes clear conflict-of-interest safeguards

Our ecosystem is already struggling to stay alive!

It can’t speak for itself - it needs YOUR voice!

If you ever feel like you have no control over what’s happening to the environment - here’s your chance to take a tangible step to make a difference in your own backyard.

Copy & Paste these emails to contact the Mayor & Commissioners:  

mayor@cityofkeywest-fl.gov, districtI@cityofkeywest-fl.gov, districtII@cityofkeywest-fl.gov, districtIII@cityofkeywest-fl.gov, DistrictIV@cityofkeywest-fl.gov, districtV@cityofkeywest-fl.gov, districtVI@cityofkeywest-fl.gov