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Egmont Key escapes budget axe, at least for now

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By CATHERINE DOLINSKI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: May 22, 2009

TALLAHASSEE - Egmont Key escaped the axe during this spring's state budget deliberations, but supporters worry the reprieve may only be temporary.

This spring, as state lawmakers sought to stave off a $6-billioin budget deficit, they considered closing Egmont Key State Park and 18 others to save $1.9 million. Egmont Key costs the state $140,000 annually to provide full-time ranger protection for its bird colonies, gopher tortoises, sea turtles and historical treasures, including a lighthouse built in 1858.

The park is located on an island at the entrance of Tampa Bay, southwest of Fort DeSoto State Park. The proposal to end full-time ranger protection first came from the state Park Service as one strategy among many for meeting state budget-cutting targets.

Gov. Charlie Crist intervened in early March, proposing to use money from an environmental trust fund and raise park fees to keep all of the parks open. But Egmont Key's fate remained in question, as a Senate budget writers persisted with plans to remove state rangers from the park and give it back to the federal government. The state co-manages the park with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which has lacked funding to provide full-time ranger staffing.

Environmentalists said that removing the rangers would turn the park into a party island again. "We would be in the process of losing all of the work done to improve the island since 1980," Jim Spangler, immediate past president of the Egmont Key Alliance.

Ultimately, state lawmakers found the money to keep the park and maintain protective staffing, to the relief of Egmont Key's supporters. But Spangler worries that the park received a final reprieve only because lawmakers chose to spend any new money on Florida Forever, the state's program to conserve land through acquisition.

Spangler supports Florida Forever and wants to see it revived. Even if it is not, he said, that does not solve the problem of funding state parks like Egmont Key in the long run.

'Florida's financial future is probably not going to be much better in the fall, so the governor's going to have ask again, where they can cut money," Spangler said. "We don't know where the next boost of funding might come from to keep all of the state parks alive and functioning."

Reporter Catherine Dolinski can be reached at (850) 222-8382.

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