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The environmental community appears to be split over legislation waiting for the Governor’s signature. A bill sets up a never before tried plan to plant grasses on state lands to offset losses from development. Once sea grass is killed or uprooted it doesn’t normally grow back. Jeff Beggins President of Seagrass Recovery said the legislation is needed in order to save the state’s underwater habitats.

“We’ve lost over sixty percent of the sea grass habitat since 1950 in the state, about 82 acres a day. What we offer as a solution to restore all these propeller scares and the boat grinding holes to bring this resource back to where it needs to be it is after all the nursery of the whole sea,” said Beggins.

Jay Lyles, a policy consultant for the Florida Wildlife Federation, said the technology to restore sea grass beds hasn’t been proven.

“There’s not enough technology there to indicate that you can mitigate for sea grass beds being destroyed is so much in the infant stage. We have not experienced or seen any incident in which that’s been successful. This bill needs to be vetoed by Governor Crist,” said Lyles.

Governor Charlie Crist said he needs to take a closer look at the bill before making a decision to either sign or veto the legislation.