Updated June 18, 2025
In a reversal of its earlier decision, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection has denied the City of Riviera Beach’s application for a state permit that would allow it to operate a managed mooring field in the Lake Worth Lagoon near Palm Beach’s North End shoreline.
The DEP notified Riviera Beach of the denial in a June 11 letter, after the Town of Palm Beach appealed the environmental agency’s May 1 decision announcing its intention to approve the permit.
Palm Beach challenged the approval, saying Riviera Beach failed to demonstrate in its management plan that it would devote sufficient resources for law enforcement and facilities needed for the mooring field, which the city said would accommodate up to 100 vessels. Palm Beach also argued that no other municipality, including Riviera Beach, should be permitted to operate a mooring field within Palm Beach’s jurisdiction.
The mooring field would be located about 500 feet from Palm Beach’s shoreline, between the Port of Palm Beach’s south turning basin and the Safe Harbor Rybovich Marina cross channel.
It is one of three mooring fields that Riviera Beach proposes to establish and manage. Palm Beach did not challenge the DEP’s decision to grant a state permit for the other two mooring fields, which would be located near Peanut Island and Phil Foster Marine Park.
In the June 11 letter to Riviera Beach, and to John Sprague, the city’s consultant for the project, the DEP said there is “no reasonable assurance” that Riviera Beach has the ability to ensure compliance with its mooring field management plan … “since the proposed mooring field is located outside of the municipality’s jurisdiction.”
Riviera Beach’s management plan calls for the city’s marina to act as the upland support facility for the mooring field near Palm Beach and for the other two. That would be a total of 194 moorings, including the 100 at the mooring field near Palm Beach’s North End.
But, in the June 11 letter, signed by Sirena Davila, director of the DEP’s Southeast District, the agency said the total number of moorings authorized per associated upland support facility is limited to one hundred.
“Therefore, this proposal would exceed the one hundred mooring limit that can be associated with the upland support facility,” the letter stated.
The letter did not cite a specific regulatory rule or statute in support of the 100-mooring limit.
Riviera Beach has said the mooring fields would be environmentally beneficial and help address the problem of derelict vessels in the lagoon and boaters’ dumping of waste into the lagoon.
The mooring fields require a state permit, a federal permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and a state submerged land lease from Governor Ron DeSantis’s Board of Trustees.
Palm Beach Town Manager Kirk Blouin told the Palm Beach Civic Association on Wednesday that the town’s objections, including most notably Riveria Beach’s lack of jurisdiction for the south mooring field near Palm Beach, have been validated by the DEP’s most recent decision.
“It’s too bad we had to go through this whole process to get here, but I appreciate that FDEP acknowledged the initial error of its previous approval,” Blouin said.
Keith Beaty, chairman of the Civic Association’s Intracoastal/Lagoon Committee and a member of its Executive Committee, said the DEP’s decision is a “very good ruling” for Palm Beach and its citizens.
“I am delighted that the number one reason for denial was the fact that the proposed mooring field is outside the jurisdiction of Riviera Beach,” Beaty said.
Beaty said he’s curious about the DEP’s second reason for denial – the 100 limit on the total number of moorings authorized per associated upland support facility.
“If that is a statutory or regulatory limit, I would like to understand why it had not been cited for denial earlier,” Beaty said.
The denial letter gives Riviera Beach the option to amend their notice within 60 days and to file a petition for an administrative hearing to challenge the ruling within 21 days.
“We should all stay vigilant,” Beaty said.
Florida DEP letter to Riviera Beach –June 11, 2025
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