Category: Policy

Several water and coastal bills are being passed and supported, including a seagrass restoration technology development initiative, land acquisition trust fund and EPA grant for Indian River Lagoon field trip.    Update provided by Chris Hodge 

General Permit for Seagrass Restoration  This general permit is intended to streamline seagrass restoration. No draft has been released nor have hearings been scheduled. (This topic was covered in the October/November CCS newsletter).  Generic NPDES Permit to allow discharges associated with experimental technologies to control Red Tide and Blue Green Algae.      This proposed generic permit […]

 2023 Legislative Session   The 2023 legislative session begins in April, but bills worth watching are beginning to be filed and referred to the appropriate committees.     Senate Bill 100 – Mangrove Replanting and Restoration.  This bill amends Section 403.9324, Florida Statutes, Florida’s mangrove protection statute. It requires FDEP to adopt rules for mangrove replanting and restoration […]

In October, Florida Sea Grant convened a small group of scientists, policy specialists, regulators, and stakeholders to discuss opportunities and challenges in the emerging field of restoration aquaculture. Restoration aquaculture is a relatively new area that merges the commodity-based production-oriented practices of aquaculture with an ecosystem services approach to environmental restoration. The goal is to […]

STATE POLICY BRIEF  OYSTER GOVERNANCE IN FLORIDA: A RICH HISTORY WITH LESSONS FOR FUTURE MANAGEMENT  Project Team Chad Palmer, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Natural Resources and the Environment, UF Cole Thomas, J.D. (2022), UF Levin College of Law Meredith Burgess, J.D. Candidate (2023), UF Levin College of Law Jamie Castille, M.S., Wildlife Ecology and Conservation […]

The CCS Coastal Policy Lab focused the Spring semester on the development of science-to-policy tools to advance the development of restoration aquaculture to enhance water quality in Florida and on governance issues associated with Florida’s wild oyster fishery.

Adding Independent Special Districts to the list of entities eligible to participate in the Statewide Flooding and Sea Level Rise Resilience planning and implementation processes should be afforded further consideration given their self-governing authority over critical assets, their ability to operationalize resiliency projects and their capacity to leverage state and other grant funds provided through their own revenue generation.

Coastal policy received a significant amount of attention in the Florida legislature this year, with several bills and budget items making their way to the Governor’s desk and others dying in committees. This update describes bills and projects of particular relevance to the CCS community and provides some context.

By Tom Ankersen, Legal Skills Professor & Legal Program Director, UF Law Students and faculty in the CCS Coastal Policy Lab (CPL) kicked off Spring Break with a field trip to Tampa Bay to get out on the water and meet the stakeholders where they work. The CPL is an experiential learning partnership between the […]

As part of the Fall 2021 Coastal Policy Lab, a partnership between Florida Sea Grant, the University of Florida Conservation Clinic at the Levin College of Law and the CCS in the College of Engineering, faculty and students investigated the potential to mitigate the impacts of repetitive maintenance dredging by using more efficient channel designs.

Bills to authorize mitigation banking for seagrass and other marine resources on sovereign submerged lands (SSL) have been introduced in the Florida House of Representatives and Florida Senate for consideration in the 2022 legislative session.

The inaugural semester of the CCS Coastal Policy Lab came to close in early December with a field trip to Sanibel Island to present the results of the students’ interdisciplinary projects. The Coastal Policy Lab (CPL) is a student-centered experiential learning collaboration between the University of Florida Colleges of Law and Engineering, and Florida Sea […]

By applying the engaging elements found in games to research, projects can be optimized around human motivation and entice citizen scientists to participate at a higher rate and longer than they otherwise would have. While many singular projects have been “gamified,” Florida could benefit from a comprehensive app that ties together the best elements previously used in single projects.

Rule Development in the DEP Office of Resilience and Coastal Protection, by Matthew DePaolis, Coastal Policy Analyst Fellow, Center for Coastal Solutions / UF Law Conservation Clinic & Florida Sea Grant Legal Program

The Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation has a new article out on the inaugural Coastal Policy Lab course. Full text is provided below and and you can find the original SCCF article here. As part of SCCF’s new memorandum of understanding with the University of Florida (UF) Center for Coastal Solutions, an inaugural fall semester course called […]

Savannah Peltrau (M.S., Engineering) and Colson Douglas (J.D. Candidate, Law) reflect on their experiences as Center for Coastal Solutions summer student interns.

This analysis briefly describes the amendments to boating law introduced by the bills SB 1946 and 1086 and provides some context. By Tom Ankersen and Colson Douglas.

CCS’s summer student interns, Savannah Peltrau (B.S., Environmental Sciences) and Colson Douglas (J.D. Candidate, Law) are teaming up to support a project with Florida Sea Grant under a contract with the West Coast Inland Navigation District (WCIND) to update the District’s five year strategic plan.

We are excited to announced that we have hired Matthew DePaolis as the Florida Sea Grant/Center for Coastal Solutions Coastal Policy Analyst Fellow for the 2021/2022 academic year.