The Miami International Boat Show plans to go very big in Miami in 2022, and that’s sparked a fight with local regulators over protecting manatees.
After running the show on floating docks off Virginia Key for four years and scrapping this year’s event as a COVID-19 precaution, the Presidents Day Weekend show is moving its main on-the-water element to several spots off the shore of downtown Miami.
Staging the show at those locations requires constructing temporary docks for hundreds of slips over bay bottom that Miami-Dade County has designated as manatee-protection zones.
That led to a flare-up this week over boat traffic and the hazards of fatal manatee collisions when the administration of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava attempted to bar the Feb. 16-20 show from conducting test drives for more than 100 boats the event wanted to make available for sea trials.
The county’s environmental regulators endorsed constructing temporary marinas over the manatee areas. But they said allowing daily back-and-forth trips of roughly 150 boats needed for sea trials throughout the five-day event would be too risky for manatees feeding and swimming in an area already ravaged by a loss of sea grass.
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