VERO BEACH — Spurred by our story on the problem of litter on spoil islands in the Indian River Lagoon, the Vero Beach Yacht Club has formally adopted Boat Club Island – located just north of Grand Harbor and west of mile marker 120.
The renewable agreement, which requires the club to organize at least four cleanups per year, was made through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Adopt-A-Spoil Island Project, managed by the Indian River Lagoon Aquatic Preserves Field Office in Fort Pierce.
Yacht Club members plan to conduct every-other-month cleanups, according to Annie Rogers, a member of the committee that researched the possibility of adopting an island.
“After we read the article about the trash on the islands, we started talking about how we could help,” Rogers said. “We compiled all the information we could find and spoke with the Spoil Islands Project people and asked about the available islands.”
One of them was Boat Club Island, where Yacht Club members and other local boaters would gather for Sunday-afternoon cookouts from the 1960s through the early 1980s. The destination was so popular in those years that club members built docks there and gave the island its then-unofficial name.
Several committee members used the club’s pontoon boat to tour the island on June 4, and, because of its historical link to the Yacht Club, selected it for adoption. According to the August 2016 edition of The Siren, the club’s monthly newsletter: “They were favorably impressed with its potential as an off-site, club-event location, fire pit and all.”
The committee presented its recommendation to the club’s board of directors, which approved the adoption.
Yacht Club members joined the Ninth Annual Treasure Coast Waterway Cleanup – an effort to clean up 125 miles of waterways in Indian River, St. Lucie and Martin counties – on July 23. Club-organized cleanups of Boat Club Island are scheduled for Sept. 17 and Nov. 30.
“We’ll be working very closely with the Spoil Island Project people and the Friends of the Spoil Islands to enhance the island we’ve adopted,” Roger said, adding that Billy Gibson, president of the “Friends” group, is scheduled to speak to Yacht Club members in October.
