Back to CCAA Current Issues Page
Is county's vessel noise ordinance enforceable? Officials have doubts
From the Citrus County Chronicle, March 20, 2005
By Terry Witt
Top officials in the Citrus County Sheriff's Office this week questioned whether the county commission's proposed vessel noise ordinance is enforceable.
But two officials from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said there are ways to make use of the ordinance and methods for enforcing it.
Complaints about airboat noise from residents in Ozello, Riverhaven, Homosassa and the Tsala Apopka Chain of Lakes prompted commissioners to consider adopting a vessel noise control ordinance.
The state currently preempts counties from regulating vessel noise unless specific language is used from state statute. The county is proposing to adopt that language and limit all vessel noise to 90 decibels at 50 feet.
With the new law, the county could also create quiet zones in environmentally sensitive areas, such as bird rookeries. The law would give law enforcement the power to require any boat operator to submit to a sound-level test. Refusal to take the test would result in arrest on a misdemeanor charge.
However, the law would provide no guidance about where sound tests would occur or what procedures local officers would use to enforce the decibel limits.
Discussion of the ordinance took a new twist when Sheriff Jeff Dawsy told the Chronicle editorial board Thursday that none of the county's airboats can legally meet the 90 decibels at 50-feet requirement.
The Sheriff's Office tested its airboat and the aquatics services' airboat using decibel meters, and found both airboats exceeded 90 decibels at 50 feet.
Dawsy stopped short of saying he would not enforce the law, but he said there are questions about where he would get the equipment and manpower and exactly how he would enforce it.
Dawsy's top two commanders, Wayne Burns and Bob Blume, said the proposed ordinance does not tell them how to enforce it.
Burns said sound readings are always higher at the back of the boat than the front or sides, which raises the question about where the noise should be measured. He said the officer would also have to be careful not to accidentally measure other nearby sources of sound at the same time he was trying to determine sound levels coming from the boat.
If the officer were stationary, Burns said, he would have to judge whether the boat was 50 feet away.
"I would not say it's not enforceable," Blume added. "But I don't think it's the fix people think it's going to be," Blume said.
Assistant County Attorney Michele Slingerland concedes the ordinance is vaguely worded, but she said the county has no choice but to take language directly from state statute. She said the commission can adopt the law or not adopt it, but the wording can't be altered.
Slingerland would not say whether the law is enforceable, but she said the Sheriff's Office will have no choice but to enforce the law if it is adopted by the county commission.
Capt. Alan Richard, assistant general counsel for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said the law is enforceable.
He said it will involve purchasing more equipment and receiving training on how to use the equipment, "but is it enforceable. Yes, it is."
Richard said he knows with certainty other counties and cities are using the same law Citrus County is proposing to adopt.
He said some counties use a milk jug to measure the sound at homeowner docks. The milk jug is attached to a 50-foot cord and allowed to float off the dock. The officer then stands on the dock with a decibel meter and measures the noise as the boat passes by. The boat must be outside the milk jug to get a legal reading.
Dennis David, regional director of the FWC, said the vessel noise ordinance offers homeowners who live on water bodies a tool to report vessel noise problems.
It also gives the Sheriff's Office a reason to contact the offending boat operator and take a decibel reading. David said the officer can talk to the boat operator about the complaint filed against him and the possible penalties.
"If they are in violation they can change their behavior, or go somewhere else," he said.