Introduction
In Part I of this blog segment, we reviewed the emerging science and early policy history of sea turtles and lighting. Scientists began to study the light sensitive nature of sea turtles in the early 20th century and by the 1970s concluded that light sensitivity was a defining factor in both adult and hatchling orientation. At the same time, Florida’s century long coastal building boom began to light up once remote barrier islands, and the specter of crushed and desiccated hatchlings on roads and beaches captured the public’s attention. In the mid-1980s, beginning with Brevard County – the epicenter of one of the hemisphere’s largest nesting aggregations – local governments began to adopt regulations restricting beachfront lighting. In Part II, we chart the emergence of the state and local regulatory framework to address lighting in the context of continued advances in sea turtle science and lighting technology. We also explore the role of endangered species protections on lighting policy, focusing on the famous “Turtles Case” involving lighting and beach driving in Volusia County. In Part III, forthcoming, we will describe the significance of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster recovery plan for sea turtle lighting policy and then return to the effort to update the State’s model ordinance, which culminated in adoption in 2020.
The State Gets into the Act
As local governments moved forward with lighting ordinances in the mid-1980s, the Florida Legislature took up the issue in 1986 as part of a sweeping reform to the Beaches and Shores Preservation Act – the statute that governs beach management generally, including coastal permitting and funding for beach nourishment.[i] Two new amendments directly addressed beach lighting and sea turtles. The first created a “carrot” to encourage local governments to adopt lighting ordinances. In awarding coveted beach nourishment projects, it required the Florida Division of Beaches and Shores Management within the Department of Natural Resources (FDNR) to consider, among other criteria, “the extent which local governments in the area of the project have enacted ordinances or other regulations to protect sea turtles from the adverse effects of beachfront lighting.”[ii] This provision, along the other criteria for prioritizing projects, was removed in 2000 as part of another major revision to Chapter 161, Florida Statutes.[iii] The revised statute delegated the criteria for prioritizing beach nourishment projects to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) through a new statewide and regional beach management planning process. (FDEP was created in 1994 through an agency reorganization that merged FDNR and the Department of Environmental Regulation into a single agency).[iv] FDEP created its rule-based ranking procedure in 2003.[v] The new ranking procedure did not address sea turtle lighting, awarding points only for “[p]rojects that are adjacent or within designated nesting sea turtle refuges.”[vi] The ranking criteria has been amended twice since 2003, most recently in 2020.[vii] The 2020 rule criteria awards additional points “if the project exceeds best management practices to incorporate turtle-friendly designs and management strategies to protect resources or benefit critical habitat preservation,”[viii] which could presumably include sea turtle friendly lighting.
The second provision related to lighting in the 1986 statute gave the Florida Department of Natural Resources two years to “adopt by rule guidelines for local government regulations that control beachfront lighting.”[ix] While the Department would miss that deadline, it did ultimately adopt the “Model Sea Turtle Lighting Ordinance” in 1993.[x] By that time 42 local governments had already adopted lighting ordinances,[xi] with varying degrees of conformance with the model ordinance.
The Coastal Construction Control Line Program and Lighting
Regulation of construction on Florida’s beaches began in 1965 with the passage of the Beaches and Shores Preservation Act.[xii] However, it was not until 1970 that lines in the sand began to be drawn to address coastal development. In that year, the legislature established a statewide coastal construction setback line fifty feet from the mean high water line of both the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.[xiii] In 1971, the statute was revised to create a program that would establish the setback line based on local conditions.[xiv] In 1978, the Coastal Construction Setback line was recharacterized as the Coastal Construction Control Line (CCCL).[xv] The CCCL serves as a line of jurisdiction and regulates activities seaward of that line, including the permitting of structures and their associated lighting. Replacing the original static 50-foot setback line, the CCCL is dynamic, defining “that portion of the beach-dune system which is subject to severe fluctuations based on a 100-year storm surge, storm waves, or other predictable weather conditions.”[xvi] CCCLs are established on a county-by-county basis through a methodology adopted by FDEP by rule, and revised periodically.[xvii]
To implement the CCCL permitting program, The Florida Department of Natural Resources (FDNR) adopted Florida Administrative Code Rule 16B-33 in 1980.[xviii] Not surprisingly, the 1982 version of that rule does not address sea turtle lighting, or other sea turtle protections for that matter.[xix] In 1983, the Florida Legislature amended Chapter 161 to provide FDNR with authority to “condition the nature, timing and sequence of construction of permitted activities to provide protection nesting sea turtles and hatchlings and their habitat…,” referencing the State’s marine turtle protection statute then in effect.[xx] In the late 1980s or early 1990s, staff with the Florida DNR/DEP sea turtle program began reviewing “Sea Turtle Protection Plans” for new coastal construction with an increasing focus on sea turtle friendly lighting (Blair Witherington, personal communication, September 9, 2024). In 1993, FDNR was absorbed into the Florida Department of Environmental Protection as part of larger governmental streamlining initiative.[xxi] The CCCL Program and accompanying rules migrated with it. The CCCL Rule was recodified as Rule 62B-33.
While the regulatory history is not entirely clear, since at least 2000, and likely well before that, Rule 62B-33.005 has included a special condition on CCCL permits that specified that “all forms of lighting, shall be shielded or otherwise designed so as not to disturb marine turtles. Tinted glass or similar light control measures shall be used for windows and doors which are visible from the nesting area of the beach.”[xxii] In 2018, that language would be amended again to provide much more specific guidance, reflecting the increasingly sophisticated science that has developed around sea turtles and light, and the increasingly availability of lighting techniques and technologies that satisfy the needs of both humans and sea turtles. The 2018 amendment not only required shielding; it specifies that only long wavelength light greater than 560 nanometers may be used. And in addition to just requiring tinting on windows and doors visible for the nesting area of the beach, it specifies that the tinted glass must have 45 percent light transmittance.[xxiii]
The Environmental Resource Permitting Program and Lighting
While the CCCL permitting program governs coastal development that occurs seaward of the Line, it does not address development activities landward of that line. Therefore, in terms of State involvement, other regulatory programs would be required to deal with problematic beach lighting that did not invoke CCCL jurisdiction. This opportunity arose around the same time that the science of sea turtles and lighting was maturing, and the State was coalescing an inter-agency program around sea turtles. The 1993 regulatory streamlining that created the new Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) also created the “Environmental Resource Permit (ERP) Program,”[xxiv] a reform designed to merge several statewide permitting activities, including dredge and fill and stormwater management, that were not dependent on the CCCL for jurisdiction. Regardless of whether they straddle the CCCL, most new coastal commercial and multi-family developments had to manage their stormwater, triggering ERP jurisdiction.
One important aspect of the new ERP program, implemented by an administrative rule adopted in 1995, was the consideration of “secondary impacts.”[xxv] Under existing administrative case law, secondary impacts had been characterized as “impacts that occur outside the direct footprint of the project, but are closely linked and causally related to the activity being permitted.”[xxvi] The inclusion of secondary impacts review in the ERP Program created the opportunity to bring lighting into a much broader array of coastal projects.[xxvii] The ERP Program is implemented through a complex rule and associated “Applicant’s Handbook” and administered by the FDEP and the State’s Water Management Districts. There have been two major reforms to the ERP Rule, in 2013 and 2024,[xxviii] both mandated by the Florida Legislature to achieve statewide consistency. Both require the consideration of secondary impacts in relation to fish and wildlife and endangered species generally,[xxix] and these considerations serve as the basis for lighting review. However, the most recent 2024 edition of the Applicant’s Handbook specifically includes “lights from developments adjacent to marine turtle nesting beaches” as a potential secondary impact.[xxx]
Science and Lighting Technology Continues to Drive Policy
This increased attention to lighting impacts of coastal construction in 1990s, and the regulatory response, was no doubt driven by the continuing development of the science of sea turtles and lighting. In 1991, Blair Witherington, now a PhD student at the University of Florida published a key article with his advisor Karen Bjorndal, Director of UF’s Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, and herself a student of Archie Carr.[xxxi] The oft-cited article explored the impact of commercially available “luminaires” on hatchling loggerhead sea turtles, and concluded that short wavelength low pressure sodium lights that emit only yellow light had the least impact on hatchling seafinding. On the other hand, the authors found that typically used broad-spectrum white light had the most detrimental impact. Between 1989 and 1996, Witherington authored or coauthored at least ten scientific publications exploring the implications of lighting for sea turtles – many of these outgrowths of his 1992 PhD dissertation.[xxxii] By 1996, Witherington was employed by the Florida Marine Research Institute, a research bureau within FDEP that eventually migrated to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) as part of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.[xxxiii] There he and co-author Erik Martin translated the science into management and policy recommendations in a Technical Report entitled “Understanding, Assessing, and Resolving Light-Pollution Problems on Sea Turtle Nesting Beaches.”[xxxiv]
The science and associated technology for sea turtle-friendly lighting was sufficiently robust that in the early 2000’s the FWC working in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) created a “Wildlife Lighting Certification Program.”[xxxv] The Program was the brainchild of Robbin Trindell and colleagues at FWC and FWS who saw the potential for a market in “sea turtle friendly” lighting products, and came up with the now familiar tagline “Keep it Long; Keep it Low; Keep in Shielded.”[xxxvi] The voluntary Program allows manufacturers, distributors, and vendors of lighting products that meet performance criteria and standards to market their products as “Certified Wildlife Lighting,” display a logo to this effect, and have the product included on a list published by FWC.[xxxvii] DarkSky followed suit with its own “DarkSky Approved Sea Turtle Sensitive lighting certification.[xxxviii] Today an internet search will yield numerous results from both manufacturers and engineers as well as architect and engineers proudly plying their wildlife and sea turtle friendly products and services with the FWC and DarkSky certifications.
Light Pollution Gains Attention… and Policy Traction
Even while Blair Witherington and colleagues continued their deep dive into the impacts of Florida’s increasingly well-lit skies on sea turtles, the issue of light pollution gained increasing attention with astronomers and wildlife scientists more generally. In 1988, astronomers David Crawford and Tim Hunter founded the International Dark-Sky Association “to preserve and protect the nighttime environment and our heritage of dark skies through quality outdoor lighting.”[xxxix] A 1996 article in The Amicus Journal, published by the Natural Resources Defense Council, brought additional attention to subject, noting the issue is not just an arcane matter for astronomers.[xl] Calling out the impacts to migratory wildlife generally, and to the human psyche, the article made specific reference to impacts to sea turtles.
In 2002, the first North American conference on light pollution was convened in Orlando, the results of which were published in an edited volume entitled “The Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting.”[xli] The book very briefly reviewed the history of research on the subject, noting several conferences that had been convened in Europe in the late 1990s and early 2000. In particular, the authors drew attention to Blair Witherington’s mid-1990s work on lighting and Florida’s sea turtles. In November of 2008, National Geographic devoted its cover to “The End of Night.”[xlii] The article within discussed the broader ecological and societal impacts of light pollution and made specific reference to Florida sea turtle hatchling losses “in the hundreds of thousands.”[xliii] These broader concerns over the impacts of lighting on all forms of wildlife contributed to the establishment of the Wildlife Lighting Certification Program by FWC in the early 2000’s, discussed previously.[xliv]
The International Dark-Sky Association (now called DarkSky) has established its own voluntary certification program for parks, preserves and communities, with lighting requirements broadly similar to those advocated by sea turtle advocates.[xlv] It also tracks the developments in the science and policy of light pollution, publishing a yearly update.[xlvi]
One development during this era that reflects the maturation and acceptance of sea-turtle friendly lighting science and technology came with the inclusion of sea turtle lighting requirements into the Florida Building Code. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew devastated Southeast Florida and prompted the State to move toward the adoption of a single statewide code in 1998,[xlvii] while still allowing for local amendments subject to final approval by the Florida Building Commission.[xlviii] The first statewide code was completed and went into effect in 2002.[xlix] In 2004, a special section on construction seaward of the CCCL was added to the Florida Building Code, including a provision that serves as a reminder to developers, contractors, and code enforcement officers that FDEP requires a permit that may condition the nature, timing and sequence of construction on sea turtle activity, along with the “submittal and approval of lighting plans.”[l] However, Pinellas County adopted and has periodically modified a “technical local amendment” with historical roots in the 1978 establishment of the Coastal Construction Control Line Program.[li] The Pinellas County-specific “Coastal Code” was incorporated into the new statewide code when the new post-Hurricane Andrew statewide code went into effect in 2002.[lii] Specific provisions addressing sea turtles and beachfront lighting are included.[liii] The fact that lighting specifications were incorporated into a building code (albeit a local code) that developers, architects, engineers and contractors adhere to as a matter of course represents a perhaps overlooked milestone in the development of sea turtle science and lighting technology.
Sea Turtle Lighting and the Endangered Species Act
All species of sea turtles were included as either endangered or threatened when the initial listing was published in 1978, five years after the passage of the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and all are protected under the Florida Marine Turtle Protection Act (MTPA), whose liability provisions are similar those of the federal law. Both the federal and state laws prohibit the “take” of listed species. And both recognize that “take” can mean to “harm” or “harass” the species. A subsequent blog will address more fully the legal history of sea turtles under the ESA and MTPA generally, but the question of liability for lighting disorientation under these statutes is treated here.
The question of whether human activities that modify the behavior or modify the habitat of endangered species can be considered a “take” of an endangered or threatened species for purposes of the ESA’s prohibition on unauthorized taking has been a contentious one.[liv] For sea turtles, that question arose in a famous and complex case that spanned years involving “The World’s Most Famous Beach” – Daytona Beach in Volusia County.
The Turtles Case
In 1995, a group of plaintiffs that included two sea turtle species filed suit in federal court under the Endangered Species Act against Volusia County to ban the longstanding cultural practice of beach driving and for inadequate regulation of beachfront lighting.[lv] The “Turtles Case” is styled as such because it is one of those federal endangered species cases where the individual species themselves were named plaintiffs. As a result, both the lower and appellate court gave voice to the Loggerhead Turtle and the Green Turtle as plaintiffs in the own right. The lower court even found that if the two human plaintiffs were to be dismissed, the case would proceed based on the capacity of the turtles to sue “in their own right.”[lvi]
Beyond the anthropomorphizing, the case broke new ground for several reasons. Perhaps most importantly, the trial court explicitly found that “[t]he evidence at this stage overwhelmingly supports the conclusion that artificial beachfront lighting harms and harasses the Loggerhead and Green sea turtles within the meaning of the Endangered Species Act….”, and that “the evidence decidedly favors the conclusion that artificial lighting is responsible for the taking of these sea turtles on the beaches of Volusia County.” [lvii] However, the Court stopped short of concluding that any turtles had actually been “taken,” because there had not been a trial showing any specific lights disorient specific turtles.[lviii] It is worth noting that the remedy sought by the plaintiffs was the adoption of the FDEP’s 1991 Model Sea Turtle Lighting Ordinance. During the pendency of the case, in November of 1998, the US Fish and Wildlife Service issued an “incidental take” permit (ITP) that allowed the County to proceed with its beachfront driving program, conditioned on a plan that required the County to mitigate for the “incidental take” by regulating beachfront lighting.[lix] Based on that ITP, the trial court dismissed the case. The Turtles appealed to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.
On appeal, the 11th Circuit favorably cited the lower court’s finding of “overwhelming evidence” that artificial lighting can result in a take.[lx] Disagreeing with the County, however, the appellate Court concluded that the County could not evade liability for harm alleged to occur through inadequate lighting regulation by proposing to upgrade that same lighting regulation as mitigation for harm caused by beachfront driving. In essence, the County had not sought an ITP for artificial lighting – which the plaintiffs alleged “took” turtles, and thus the County could not take any turtles without an ITP, even if it were fewer turtles (hence mitigating any take due to beachfront driving).
In addition to the factual determination that artificial lighting that results in disorientation/misorientation may cause legal “take,” and that inadequate regulation that results in disorientations/misorientations can also cause take, the Turtles Case stands for the proposition that proposals to mitigate harm by reducing take from one activity to compensate for take by another activity does not absolve a defendant from seeking an incidental take permit for that other activity.[lxi]
Ultimately, the County dropped its effort to mitigate driving impacts with its lighting program, characterizing artificial light management as a “voluntary conservation measure,”[lxii] and adopted a minimum lighting standards ordinance that mirrored the 1993 FDEP Model Lighting Ordinance for Sea Turtle Protection then in effect.[lxiii]
Coming Next
In our next installment, we will conclude our deep dive into the history of sea turtle lighting policy in Florida by looking at the impacts of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill recovery plan on coastal light management in Florida. Sea turtles were seriously affected by the massive spill, and significant funds were allocated from the multi-billion dollar spill settlement to address lighting issues through a highly successful retrofit program. We will also trace developments in the FDEP’s 1993 model lighting ordinance, which concluded with a major rewrite of the ordinance in 2020 that reflected the 30 years of advances in both the science of sea turtles and light, and lighting technology.
Digging Deeper
Blair E. Witherington & Karen A. Bjorndal, Influences of artificial lighting on the seaward orientation of hatchling loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta 55 Biological Conservation 139, 139 (1991)
Thomas K. Ruppert, Eroding Long-Term Prospects for Florida’s Beaches: Florida’s Coastal Construction Control Line Program, 1 Sea Grant Law and Pol’y J. 65, 74 (2008). https://www.flseagrant.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Eroding-Long-Term-Prospects-for-Floridas-Beaches.pdf
Catherine Rich & Travis Longcore, Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting (2006).
Drew Reagan, Artificial Light at Night: State of the Science 2024, DarkSky, (June 24, 2024) https://darksky.org/news/artificial-light-at-night-state-of-the-science-2024/
[i] See Ch. 86-138, Fla. Laws (1986) (codified at Fla. Stat. § 161.161 (1986)).
[ii] Ch. 86-138, § 9, Fla. Laws (1986) (codified at Fla. Stat. § 161.161 (1986)).
[iii] See Ch. 2000-346, § 12, Fla. Laws (2000) (codified at Fla. Stat. § 161.161 (2000)).
[iv] See Ch. 94-356, Fla. Laws (1994) (codified at Fla. Stat. § 161.161 (1994)).
[v] See Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62B-36.006 (2003).
[vi] Id.
[vii] See Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62B-36.006 (2020).
[viii] Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62B-36.006(d)(2) (2020).
[ix] Ch. 86-138, § 15, Fla. Laws (1986) (codified at Fla. Stat. § 161.161 (1986)).
[x] See Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62B-55 (1993).
[xi] See Sea Turtle Protection Agency, Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n, https://myfwc.com/conservation/you-conserve/lighting/ordinances/ (last visited Dec. 5, 2024).
[xii] See Thomas K. Ruppert, Eroding Long-Term Prospects for Florida’s Beaches: Florida’s Coastal Construction Control Line Program, 1 Sea Grant Law and Pol’y J. 65, 74 (2008).
[xiii] See Ch. 70-231, § 1, Fla. Laws (1970).
[xiv] See Ch. 71-280, § 1, Fla. Laws (1971); Fla. Stat. § 161.053 (2024).
[xv] See Ch. 78-257, § 5, Fla. Laws (1978).
[xvi] Fla. Stat. § 161.053(1)(a) (2024); Ch. 71-280, § 1, Fla. Laws (1971).
[xvii] See Fla. Stat. § 161.053 (2024).
[xviii] See Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 16B-33.005 (1980).
[xix] See Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62B-33.005 (1982).
[xx] Ch. 71-280, § 1, Fla. Laws (1971); Fla. Stat. § 161.053(4)(c) (1983).
[xxi] See Ch. 93-213, Fla. Laws (1993); John J. Fumero, Permit Streamlining: A New Age for Environmental Regulation in Florida, 67 Fla. Bar J. 62 (1993).
[xxii] Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62B-33.005(11) (2018).
[xxiii] See Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62B-33.005(13) (2018).
[xxiv] See Ch. 93-213, Fla. Laws (1993); Fla. S. Comm. on Envtl. Pres. & Conservation, Statewide Env’T Res. Permit, Interim Rep. 2012-121, at 1 (2011).
[xxv] Dione Carroll, Secondary Impacts in Environmental Permitting: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Fla. Bar Env’t and Land Use L. Sec. Reporter (March,1998).
[xxvi] Susan Roeder Martin, New Environmental Resource Permit Rules, Vol. 87, No. 8 Fla. Bar Journal 34 n. 22 (Sept./Oct. 2014). https://www.floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/new-environmental-resource-permit-rules/#:~:text=F.A.C.%20R.,a%20“but%20for”%20relationship.
[xxvii] Interview with Robbin Trindell, Biological Administrator, Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n (February 28, 2024).
[xxviii] See Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62-330 (2013); Fla. Admin. Code Ann. r. 62-330 (2024).
[xxix] Id.
[xxx] Fla. Dep’t of Envtl. Prot. & Fla. Water Mgmt. Dists., Environmental Resource Permit Applicant’s Handbook Vol. I: General and Environmental (2024).
[xxxi] See Blair E. Witherington & Karen A. Bjorndal, Influences of artificial lighting on the seaward orientation of hatchling loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta 55 Biological Conservation 139, 139 (1991).
[xxxii] See Blair E. Witherington, “Sea-finding behavior and the use of photic orientation cues by hatchling sea turtles” (1992) (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Florida).
[xxxiii] See Gil McRae, A History of Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. 28 Gulf of Mexico Sci. 173, 173 (2010).
[xxxiv] See Blair E. Witherington et al., Understanding, Assessing, And Resolving Light-Pollution Problems on Sea Turtle Nesting Beaches. 2 Fla. Marine Rsch. Inst. Technical Rep. 1, 73 (1996).
[xxxv] See Wildlife Lighting, Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n, https://myfwc.com/conservation/you-conserve/lighting/ (last visited Dec. 5, 2024).
[xxxvi] Interview with Robbin Trindell, Biological Administrator, Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n (February 28, 2024).
[xxxvii] See Certified Wildlife Lighting, Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n, https://myfwc.com/conservation/you-conserve/lighting/criteria/certified/ (last visited Dec. 5, 2024).
[xxxviii] See What We Do: DarkSky Approved, DarkSky, https://darksky.org/what-we-do/darksky-approved/ (last visited Dec. 5, 2024).
[xxxix] About DarkSky: Success Stories, DarkSky, https://darksky.org/about/success-stories/ (last visited Dec. 5, 2024).
[xl] See A. R. Upgren, Nightblindness: Light pollution is changing astronomy, the environment, and our experience of nature, 17 Amicus J. 1, 1-3 (1996), http://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A17784401/EAIM?u=gain40375&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=a1e5fa08.
[xli] See Catherine Rich & Travis Longcore, Ecological Consequences of Artificial Night Lighting (2006).
[xlii] National Geographic, 214 (2008).
[xliii] Verlyn Klinkenborg, Our Vanishing Night, Nat’l Geographic, Nov. 2008.
[xliv] See Wildlife Lighting Certification Program, Fla. Fish and Wildlife Conservation Comm’n, https://myfwc.com/conservation/you-conserve/lighting/criteria/certification/ (last visited Dec. 5, 2024).
[xlv] See Apply for Dark Sky Place certification, DarkSky, https://darksky.org/what-we-do/international-dark-sky-places/apply/ (last visited Dec. 5, 2024).
[xlvi] See Drew Reagan, Artificial Light at Night: State of the Science 2024, DarkSky, (June 24, 2024) https://darksky.org/news/artificial-light-at-night-state-of-the-science-2024/.
[xlvii] See Ch. 98-287, Fla. Laws (1998).
[xlviii] See Fla. Stat. § 553.73(4)(a) (2024).
[xlix] See Kevin M. Simmons et al., Economic Effectiveness of Implementing a Statewide Building Code: The Case of Florida, 94 Land Econ. 155, 158 (2018).
[l] Fla. Building Code § 3109.1.1.3 (2004).
[li] Overview of the Florida Building Code, Fla. Hous., https://www.floridahousing.org/
docs/default-source/aboutflorida/august2017/august2017/tab4.pdf (last visited Dec. 6, 2024).
[lii] See Fla. Building Code § 3109.8.1 (2004), (See Note accompanying § 3109.8.1).
[liii] See Pinellas County, Fla., Pinellas Gulf Beaches Coastal Construction Code § 3109.6.2.1.4 (2005).
[liv] See Paul Boudreaux, Understanding “Take” in the Endangered Species Act, 34 Ariz. L.J. 733 (2002).
[lv] See Loggerhead Turtle, et. al v. County Council of Volusia, 896 F. Supp. 1170, 1172 (M.D. Fla., 1995).
[lvi] Id. at 1177.
[lvii] Id. at 1181.
[lviii] Id.
[lix] Loggerhead Turtle v. County Council of Volusia County, Fla., 148 F.3d 1231, 1237 (11th Cir. 1998).
[lx] Id. at 1238.
[lxi] See Sean W. Kerwin, Loggerhead Turtle v. County Council Of Volusia County, Florida: Implied Permitting As A Justiciable Cause Of Action, 6 Ocean & Coastal L.J. 205, 217-221 (2001).
[lxii] Ecological Associates, Inc., Habitat Conservation Plan – A Plan for The Protection of Sea Turtles on The Beaches of Volusia County, Florida, Volusia Cnty (Aug. 2022), https://www.volusia.org/core/fileparse.php/6127/urlt/Volusia_HCP_August_2022_complete-Accessible.pdf.
[lxiii] Id.
Sea Turtle Conservancy
