Kylie Street

Dr. Linda Lane

RSM*200*D1

28 May 2023

Biscayne National Park:

Park Introduction:

For my National Park research project, I chose to learn more about Biscayne National

Park in Florida. The National Park is located in the North Florida Keys area, but the address is

Homestead, Florida. The size of the national park has a surface area of 270 square miles. 95% of

that area is water. Biscayne National Park’s mission/purpose states that “Biscayne National Park

was established in order to preserve and protect for the education, inspiration, recreation, and

enjoyment of present and future generations a rare combination of terrestrial, marine, and

amphibious life in a tropical setting of great natural beauty”. (Britannica.com) If you ever have

to ask for an overall description of Biscayne National Park, they will tell you that it is a “rare

combination of aquamarine waters, emerald islands, and fish bejeweled coral reefs” as well as an

“array of wildlife including manatees, sea turtles, hundreds of species of birds and fish, and

plants and insects found nowhere else in the United States”. (nps.com) Another brief description

about the park is that “Biscayne National Park preserves Biscayne Bay, one of the top scuba

diving areas in the United States. Within the national park, which is over 90% water, there is

an extensive mangrove forest along the shoreline, a portion of the world's third-longest living

coral reef, and the northernmost Florida Keys.” (nationalparks.org) Along with all these great

descriptions of the park, also comes some amazing activities that you can do to explore and
get to know Biscayne National Park better. This National Park offers a large variety of guided

tours as well as a bunch of outdoor and even some indoor activities. The outdoor activities

include fishing and lobstering, convoy point jetty walks, which is self-guided, canoeing and

kayaking, snorkeling and diving, boating, camping, wildlife watching, and more. For indoor

activities, they say that “the park offers a variety of free programs and activities and most of

them begin at the Dante Fascell Visitor Center, gallery and museum.” (nps.gov) Even with all

these fun activities at Biscayne National Park, there still has to be some rules implemented.

According to the NPS, “the park follows two basic sets of rules; (1) rules common to all

national parks and (2) rules that apply only in Biscayne National Park”. (nps.gov) They say

that the rules that apply to all the National Parks are from the 1916 National Park Service

Organic Act. They state the mission is to “conserve the scenery and the natural and historic

objects, and the wildlife therein and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and

by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” The other

rules that apply to all the National Parks also include the “Historic Sites Act, Endangered Species

Act, National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Water Act and more”. (nps.gov) Now the NPS

says that the rules for Biscayne National Park “include its enabling legislation, which expresses

the park purpose in broad and beautiful language. The park superintendent compendium covers

detailed items such as closures, speed limits, camping, personal watercraft, and unmanned

aircraft.” (nps.gov)

Article Summary:

For my article about Biscayne National Park, I chose the article titled, “Urban Wastes

Suffocating Biscayne National Park’s Waters” by Craig Pittman. This article is about how the

bay surrounding the National Park is in bad shape. All the development occurring in the south
part of the Florida peninsula is causing massive fish-kills. The first one happened in 2020 in

which over 27,000 fish died. Fish-kills have now happened 3 years in a row with the most recent

one in October 2022. Human pollution is causing the decline in water quality which in return

decreases the oxygen and therefore is suffocating the National Park’s waters. The park is

protected but unfortunately the entire bay is not included. The northern part of the bay includes

Miami and Miami Beach, where there are a lot of sewage leaks, septic waste, and stormwater

runoffs containing fertilizer. This has been a problem for years and 80% of the seagrass in the

northern bay has died. No fish-kills have happened in the part of the bay containing the National

Park but there is a decline in the water quality throughout the entire bay. Luckily a Chief Bay

Officer has been appointed and she is trying to accomplish some of the 68 goals to clean up the

bay. (nationalparkstraveler.org)

Issues and Challenges:

Unfortunately, there are a lot of issues and challenges within all our National Parks, but

one of the big issues in Biscayne National Park are all the fish kills and water pollution

happening. The southern half of Biscayne Bay is what is considered the National Park and not

the northern part. The northern part is what gets all the “sewage leaks, septic tank waste and

fertilizer-laden stormwater runoff.” But the ocean is always moving so these sewage leaks and

septic tank waste might be spreading over to the protected side of Biscayne Bay. According to

the article, the water quality of the bay has “nosedived” due to the “area’s sewer system

capacity” and the loss of the “oxygen-producing seagrass.” (nationalparkstraveler.org) Everyone

knows that seagrasses are what keep the ocean waters clean. So, if they are dying off then over

time the water isn’t going to be as clean as we would like it or need it to be. Another issue or

challenge that Biscayne National Park faces is all the pollution coming from all the visitors and
tourists that the park gets on a daily basis. Biscayne National Park is mainly known for all the

water activities that you can do and the park itself is 95% water, so if the water is getting all this

pollution and sewage, then people aren’t going to want to swim or do other activities like

snorkeling, diving, kayaking, boating, etc.

Management Strategies:

When you think about management strategies, there are lots of options that could be done

to keep people from littering and damaging the National Park areas. The article states that

“congress first declared the southern half of Biscayne Bay a national monument and they

expanded it to a park with 170,000 acres – 95 percent of it is water.” They did this to help keep

the majority of the bay protected from all the water and pollution that is being put into our ocean

waters and land areas. Unfortunately, there is still a part of the bay that isn’t protected and that is

where all the sewage leaks and septic waste are going. Local and state officials are taking action

by setting up a task force that includes “tackling the area’s aging stormwater and sewer systems,

getting people off septic tanks”. They are also appointing “a Chief Bay Officer to advocate for

clean water and serve as a liaison between the county and its 34 municipalities.” By appointing a

Chief Bay Officer, the county has accomplished some of their 68 goals to help clean the bay.

These goals include, “banning the sale of fertilizer”, “remove 60 derelict vessels from their

watery graves”, and “making surprise inspections of waterfront contractors”. Even though it

might take a little while to get all 68 goals accomplished, they are going in the right direction and

things are starting to look up. (nationalparkstraveler.org)

Going back and looking at what concepts we’ve talked about in class, the visitor

management assignment is a great one to link all of this with. In that assignment, I had talked

about an article I found with a group of people vandalizing the island at Biscayne National Park.

Just like my article in this research paper, both are all about pollution and how it is horrible for

the waters and marine wildlife. We need to find ways to make the National Park a better place to

be and to also make sure it is clean for not only the tourists but all the marine wildlife and land

wildlife that lives there. In both scenarios they talk about pollution and killing animals and we

need to be there to help protect them better.

Another class concept that goes perfectly with this paper is the tragedy of the commons

assignment. For that assignment I talked about the overfishing problem and how it can become a

major decline of fish supplies and food for everyone. Just like the fish-kills happening in the

article I found for this paper, the same problems can happen. Not only does both cause food loss

and fish supply decrease, but it also could cause a risk of certain fish going extinct and we could

lose them forever. We have to be so careful when it comes to both the risk of overfishing and not

knowing when enough is enough, but also the fact of pollution and certain wastes going into our

ocean and hurting all the fish around that area. Finding solutions to both these problems would

be such a dramatic help and hopefully would make our oceans a better place in the long run.

When it comes to both problems in both class concepts, I think that the possibility of

putting signs up for everything could at least start the process of getting everything back to

where it should be. For vandalism make signs that say, “do not litter” or “help keep the beaches

and waters clean”. For the overfishing and fish-kills, make signs that say, “please limit the

amount you catch” or “please be careful of what you are dumping into our ocean waters”.
 Overall, I learned a lot about Biscayne National Park. I learned about its beauty and the

wonderful things you can do in this National Park. But through all the exceptional things I

learned, I also learned the horrible things that are happening to this beautiful place. The human

pollution that is causing the water quality to decrease is something that needs to change and

change fast. We can’t afford to sit back and watch this National Park get destroyed. We have to

remember the mission statement which says that “Biscayne National Park was established in

order to preserve and protect for the education, inspiration, recreation, and enjoyment of present

and future generations a rare combination of terrestrial, marine, and amphibious life in a tropical

setting of great natural beauty”. (Britannica.com) In order to continue to enjoy this National Park

in the future, we have to do better at keeping the waters clean and pollution free.
 Works Cited

Biscayne National Park. National Park Foundation. (2023).

https://www.nationalparks.org/explore/parks/biscayne-national-

park#:~:text=Biscayne%20National%20Park%20preserves%20Biscayne,and%20the%20n

orthernmost%20Florida%20Keys

NPS. (2020). Things to do. National Parks Service.

https://www.nps.gov/bisc/planyourvisit/things2do.htm

NPS. (2021a). Laws & Policies. National Parks Service.

https://www.nps.gov/bisc/learn/management/lawsandpolicies.htm

NPS. (2021b). Nature. National Parks Service.

https://www.nps.gov/bisc/learn/nature/index.htm#:~:text=Biscayne%20National%20Park

%20protects%20four,nowhere%20else%20in%20the%20United

NPS. (2022). Biscayne National Park (U.S. National Park Service). National Parks Service.

https://www.nps.gov/bisc/index.htm

NPS. (n.d.). Foundation Document - Biscayne National Park. nps.gov.

https://www.nps.gov/bisc/learn/management/upload/Reduced-File-Size-

BISC_FD_2018_508-2-2.pdf

Pittman, C. (2022). Urban wastes suffocating Biscayne National Park’s waters. Urban Wastes

Suffocating Biscayne National Park’s Waters.

national-parks-waters

Tikkanen, A. (n.d.). Biscayne National Park. Encyclopædia Britannica.

https://www.britannica.com/science/conservation-ecology/Recent-extinction-rates