Snorkelers and Divers Are Fighting a 25-Story Condo Proposed at One of Florida's Best Dive Sites — Blue Heron Bridge
About 20 miles south of Jupiter, one of Florida's most beloved underwater destinations is facing a development fight that could change it forever.
Phil Foster Park in Riviera Beach is home to the Blue Heron Bridge snorkel trail — a site so rich in marine life that divers travel from across the country and the world to explore it. Octopuses, frogfish, boxfish, nudibranchs, stingrays, and spotted eagle rays have all been documented beneath its waters. Dive clubs and snorkel guides have built businesses around it. By many accounts, it should be a state park.
Instead, The Continuum Company wants to build a 25-story condominium tower and marina on a vacant lot at one end of the bridge, a project called Singer Island Gateway.
The company released an environmental impact statement in which a Florida Atlantic University Professor Emeritus of Geosciences concluded the development "will have no impact on the health of the adjacent marine environment" during or after construction.
Divers and snorkelers who frequent the site say that finding is flatly wrong.
"The 3 times I was at the bridge this summer, I've seen octopus, I've seen frogfish, boxfish, all kinds of stingrays, spotted eagle rays — in the area that they're saying is not as biodiverse as other areas," said Krista Parker, a NAUI Divemaster who travels from the Tampa Bay area specifically to dive the site. "I don't even know if those people — the individuals who authored that paper — were in the water.
Because there's no way you can go down there and say it's not as biodiverse as other areas at the bridge. That's just false."
Parker is particularly concerned about the proposed marina's proximity to the snorkel trail.
"If I go in June and then I don't go back till August, it's a completely different landscape," she said. "I don't think you would be able to even dive the east side if they put a marina in there, and it would pretty much destroy the environment for most of the critters."
The Blue Heron Bridge Hotel and Dive Club — located adjacent to the site — has posted signs opposing the project. A Change.org petition against the development has collected more than 28,000 signatures.
"It's a real treasure, that area, and so it's really important that we protect it," Parker said. "I'm shocked that it's not a state park by now. It draws tourism from all over the world, and we just — we have to protect it."
No final decision on the Singer Island Gateway project has been announced. Palm Beach County residents and stakeholders have continued to push back through public comment, the petition, and direct advocacy with county officials.
Source: WMNF