On Tuesday the Key West City Commission voted five to two to seek proposals from qualified partners to test water quality in the Key West Harbor. Good idea, right? Who could possibly argue against ensuring that the water around our island is healthy and why would two commissioners vote against the motion?
The vote directs city staff “to initiate a Request for Proposals process to perform water quality testing or to renew an Inter-Local Agreement with the College of the Florida Keys in accordance with Sec. 80-3, Code of Ordinances.”
What should have been a slam-dunk unanimous vote has, instead, been an almost yearlong slog through a series of intergovernmental posturing, changing leadership (think new commissioners, new mayor, new city manager) and expired agreements between the city and the college.
You can be forgiven for being confused. As best I can tell from following the public side of this knot — and I have zip insider information in case you’re wondering — the commission’s decision Tuesday makes perfect sense. Let me see if I can untangle some of it.
First we start with Section 80 Code of Ordinances. That’s the Cruise Ship Regulations ordinance adopted unanimously by the city in April 2022, after the three, citywide referendums on cruise ships in November 2020. In the two years in between overwhelming community support for banning certain ships and the adoption of Section 80, the state overruled the city’s ban.
But Section 80 put in place significant environmental controls on ships and created, in Section 80-3, two funds, one for coral restoration in the harbor and a second for a harbor water quality monitoring program. The College of the Florida Keys obtained federal grants to do the water quality monitoring and with city support and some financing, CFK started testing.
Around April 2023, the city formally entered what is known as an Inter-Local Agreement (ILA) with the college to “create a measurement field that captures any disturbances to the baseline water quality conditions between the Key West Harbor and ship channel and Eastern Dry Rocks to determine connectivity of the waters between them.”
That agreement expired in April 2024, likely an unintentional “fell through the cracks” kinda thing. Between April 2024 and January 2025, the old and new city commissions went back and forth with CFK over whether to automatically renew the agreement or look for a new partner (hence the need for Tuesday’s resolution for an RFP).
Water quality testing | Harbor turbidity cannot be ignored
No one fired the college; the agreement expired. No one said, certainly not in public, that the college wasn’t doing its job. In fact, a CFK report in November made headlines when it said one cruise ship can generate as much turbidity as a hurricane. The college is free to respond to the new RFP.
Things got more complicated when CFK said in December 2024 that it wasn’t interested renewing the ILA. Then on Jan. 29, CFK appeared to shift its position when college president Jonathan Gueverra emailed City Manager Brian Barroso: “… If the city is ready and willing to continue the work of water quality monitoring, please send us a draft of the proposed ILA for review so that CFK may review prior to elected officials taking a vote on it at it’s (sic) next meeting.”
This whole thing is a cluster and it’s dragged on way too long. Commissioners did the right thing Tuesday to get above whatever posturing, internal bickering or just plain administrative nonsense has pushed harbor water quality testing sideways. Why those two commissioners who voted against the resolution did so remains a mystery, at least in public.
The only way to get Section 80-3 back on track is to go out for proposals with specific requirements and results expected. If CFK competes successfully, way to go. If it doesn’t, another partner will.
It’s not as though there’s no water quality testing in the Keys and Key West. Mote Marine does it. So do Florida International University, the Florida Department of Health, Florida International University and NOAA. The city does its own monitoring of stormwater discharge, the city marinas and Mount Trashmore. Each testing agency monitors different things on different schedules. FIU, which has four sites (though only one close to the island), tests turbidity every 15 minutes and has done so since 2023.
The CFK testing has focused on, among other things, the turbidity levels in the harbor. CFK’s November “as much as a hurricane” report raised a lot of hackles in the contentious cruise ship discussions and could be at the heart of the “no” votes.
If the City Commission starts mucking with Section 80 to make it easier to bring back multiple cruise ships and welcome the bigger ones, I’m going to bring out my righteous “Mary, Joseph and the Wee Donkey” right alongside “What were they thinking?”
For now, let’s get this RFP done and make sure it includes testing the turbidity levels — whether from hurricanes or cruise ships.
(Voting against the RFP were Commissioners Monica Haskell and Sam Kaufman.)
Learn more
Section 80 Key West Code of Ordinances
Legislative history of Section 80 and how commission voted
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