Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

The bombs of progress blast crater in nature August 6, 1985

From the road you can't even see it.

The buffer is North Key Largo hammock, dense and darkly tangled, quiet on a summer morning. The mosquitoes are exuberant, and there are also snakes, so it is best to keep walking.

Suddenly, the pristine tamarind and mahogany end, and the sun strikes the eye harshly. Ahead the land is bare, bleached and broken, as if a giant's claw had raked away a hundred acres of forest.

It looks like a bomb exploded here, and it did. It was called Port Bougainville.

Three years ago the fancy advertising promised "the romance of the Mediterranean and the freedom of the Florida Keys." There would be a yacht club, beaches, lakes, a shopping plaza, a hotel, more than 2,500 condominiums, all with "the charm of a painting by Cezanne."

Try Salvador Dali on a bad day.

What you see now is an obscene moonscape of pits and boulders. The sales models are boarded up, the quaint unfinished plaza is a pastel ghost town. The bulldozers have been towed away, and some of the trucks and trams are up on blocks. Castor bean and other garbage weeds flourish where hardwoods once grew.

Construction ceased on Port Bougainville more than a year ago when its financing collapsed. The work that began here was mostly done by dynamite, blowing craters in the hammock to create phony lakes upon which to sell "waterfront units."

Touring the 406 acres now, one might guess that the controversial mega-condo has gone belly-up. The polite term is that the project is "in receivership."

The bank foreclosed on the developer and the developer sued the bank and now there are lawyers crawling all over the place, which means we're talking about a serious, long-term mess.

Ironic, considering the development's history—approved after months of scandalous publicity, bureaucratic hand-wringing and celebrated compromise. While environmentalists battled stridently in court, everyone else signed off on Port Bougainville—the state Department of Community Affairs, the South Florida Regional Planning Council and, of course, Monroe County's zoo of a planning department.

The project is fine, they said. A boon for the economy, they said. Environmentally sound, they said.

A darn big improvement, they all said.

Now they say: Hey, we did our best. Nobody dreamed the deal would disintegrate.

But don't think for a minute the project is dead—this is Florida, remember? This type of development is like the Frankenstein monster, a lurching clod kept on life support forever. Every so often, a new genius shows up with a new scheme for resurrection.

Ten years ago, Port Bougainville was known as Solarelle—another developer, another failure. Years from now, after the current fiasco is sorted out, the project probably will have a new owner and a new name and a new theme. Today the Mediterranean, tomorrow Venice.

And, as always, an elaborate public show will be made of trying to save as many trees and birds and butterflies as possible, which is not easy when you're using dynamite.

On Sunday, a single snowy egret searched for minnows from the shore of a jagged, blasted-out creek. A ground dove pecked for berries on a disused limestone roadbed. Yellow butterflies darted above the remaining buttonwoods but veered clear of the gashed land.

Nobody wanted Port Bougainville to turn out this way, but it did. Nobody in government had the guts to say stop.

It's classic for South Florida. Where else would they even agree to stick one of the largest-ever condo projects between a national wildlife sanctuary and the continent's only living coral reef?

Each officious drone who said yes to this extravaganza ought to be forced to spend a day on North Key Largo, walking the property with his own children.

Explaining the scars, the rubble, the whole atrocious legacy.

Pristine oasis may go to waste in trash crisis November 8, 1985

As the last wild traces of South Florida disappear under the dredge and bulldozer, it's a good time to weigh the fate of the Pond Apple Slough.

That such a place has survived the blind rapacity of Broward County's development is both a marvel and mystery. Stubbornly it thrives, a steamy oasis wedged between two of the busiest and ugliest thoroughfares ever built, State Road 84 and U.S. 441.

Perhaps one thing that has saved the 100-acre gem is its invisibility not only from the roads, but from the South New River Canal, which forms its southern boundary.

Hemmed in, shut off, nearly forgotten, the freshwater swamp and its adjacent cypress forest is one of the most pristine Florida habitats left on the peninsula. Beyond the drooping pond apples are royal palms, coco plums, leather ferns and sprawling ficuses, ancient giants draped with moss, wild orchids and airplants.

Penetrable only by canoe and foot, the Pond Apple Slough is a refuge for bobcats, raccoons, squirrels and gray foxes; snakes, alligators and endangered crocodiles; hawks, ospreys, kestrels and other birds of prey. The animals have adapted remarkably well to the swamp's clamorous borders, and even to the roar of 727s passing low on approach to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport.

But soon there will be new neighbors: Interstate 595, arcing high overhead, and a massive garbage incinerator, with two enormous landfills. The highway is an aesthetic nuisance but nonintrusive; the incinerator is something else.

The battle has been predictably emotional, with homeowners and environmentalists on one side, county officials on the other. Beginning Tuesday at the Davie-Cooper City Library, state officials will hold nine days of hearings about the new garbage plant, and one of the main issues is its effect on the rare slough.

The swamp itself is on state property, technically protected. But one of the landfills is planned for 200 acres of county property, now sawgrass, which borders the tall cypress. Environmentalists fear poisonous runoff from the ash and refuse will decimate the swamp.

George Fitzpatrick, chairman of Broward's Environmental Quality Control Board, says the landfill "will have a very negative effect … You shouldn't build incinerators with landfills in a swamp."

Adds naturalist Woody Wilkes: "It will destroy this whole area. There's no way to get around it."

Faced with a mountainous garbage crisis, Broward is determined to build new incinerators; it's already issued $521 million worth of bonds to finance two of them.

Tom Henderson, director of resource recovery, says the county has spent a fortune studying the pond apple habitat and is committed to saving the slough and restoring long-lost waterways near the dumps.

"The area's going to be much better than what's there," says Henderson.

He also says the dump site nearest the Pond Apple Slough won't be needed until the turn of the century, if ever, and that all ash would be deposited on a thick layer of plastic to prevent leeching into the precious groundwater.

Opponents say that's not enough. They view the incinerator as a fountain of rancid air, and they want modern emission controls on its smoke-stack. They also want its ash and rubble trucked out west; in other words, no landfills near the swamp.

The classic problem with dumps is that nobody wants one in their own backyard. Trouble is, this just isn't any old backyard; it's one of the few remaining glimpses of Florida as it was a century ago, a gentle canoe trip into the past.

Surely the state can settle this controversy by demanding strict, enforceable measures to save the Pond Apple Slough and the air it breathes. A dump is one kind of political legacy; a wilderness is another.

It would be a tragedy to lose it to a 40-foot hill of burnt slop.

Sewage charges latest outrage at ocean reef December 16, 1985

The idea of dumping raw sewage into the waters of the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is so vile that it makes the blood boil.

This month, the wondrous park's 25th anniversary, the Ocean Reef Club in North Key Largo was indicted on 346 counts of allegedly emptying its toilets straight into the ocean over the continent's only living coral reef.

If the charges are true, this is by far the worst in the club's long history of flagrant abuses. Of all the developments in the Florida Keys, Ocean Reef Inc. has been the most prolific violator of environmental laws. Its motto might as well be: Let's do it until we get caught.

The place is legendary: Canals appear overnight to create instant "waterfront" lots; protected mangroves vanish in the darkness. The investigatory files on Ocean Reef stuff several drawers at the state Department of Environmental Regulation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Yet sanctions against the resort have, until now, been laughably weak. The largest fine was $50,000 stretched out to five payments in five years—hardly the sort of penalty that teaches a lesson.

Much is made of the fact that Ocean Reef is a haven for the rich and famous. Wealthy or not, the people who live there had nothing to do with the sewage scandal. In fact, their complaints helped trigger the investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency.

"We're shocked by what happened, and we're angry," says Barrett Wendell, president of an Ocean Reef property owner's group. "The reef is too valuable an asset to be treated this way."

"We're the victims—not the people perpetrating this," adds Charles Howell, another resident.

Ironically, Ocean Reef homeowners had been negotiating with the developers to buy out the utilities, including the long-troubled sewage system. Last summer a tentative agreement was reached, but suddenly Ocean Reef Inc. changed its mind and decided to keep the sewer plants.

For many homeowners, this month's pollution indictment was a bitter and shameful moment. "We felt like we were indicted, too," Howell says. Some members fired off a letter to financier Carl Lindner, the principal owner, condemning the company for such a "despicable" act.

Says resident Clayton Kolstad: "We think it stinks."

And stink is the word for it. According to the indictment, raw fecal matter was purposely spewed into a slender waterway known as Channel Cay. From there tidal currents swept the putrid effluent into the Atlantic and out over the endangered offshore reef.

The dumping allegedly took place between Nov. 1, 1982, and Nov. 10, 1983, but several residents claim it actually went on much longer. Ocean Reef Inc. has declined to discuss the charges.

Up to now, the club—whose membership is full of political heavyweights—has treated the state and Army Corps like pesky gnats.

But the EPA is the big league, and this indictment is criminal. Ocean Reef's president, vice president and utilities director face a possible year in prison for each of the 346 counts, while the development conceivably could be hit with an $8.6 million fine.

If the club has a lick of common sense, the case will be settled before it ever gets to trial. A fine will be paid, nobody will do a day in jail, and the company will get back to the business of squeezing every square inch of profit out of its North Key Largo holdings.

Ocean Reef Inc. can afford a hefty fine: A couple of years ago, one undeveloped waterfront lot sold for $900,000.

Prosecutors ought to shoot for a seven-figure settlement. Big money is the only thing that gets arrogant polluters' attention, and it's the only thing that will make them think twice before opening a "magic valve" again.

As one furious Ocean Reef resident put it: "I don't know what kind of mind would pump raw sewage into a canal where children swam and snorkeled and boated. It's horrible."

Margaritaville marshlands: Wasting away? October 27, 1986

The most tranquil part of this crazed island is unknown even to some of the locals—407 nearly virgin acres of mangrove, mahogany and marshlands. The Salt Ponds.

In a place where real estate is as precious as Mel Fisher's gold, it would seem a miracle that the ponds haven't already been drained, dredged, paved and plastered. Unfortunately, that sad day might be coming. A developer named Larry Marks has fought an extended court battle for the right to put up 1,100 units here, and he says he'll do it.

In the old days, a familiar corps of tenacious environmentalists would have stood alone against the development, and probably lost. This fight is different. Opposition to the Salt Ponds project is broader, and it includes a famous voice that carries clear to Tallahassee.

Jimmy Buffett can look out at the ponds from the porch of his home. He has explored by canoe and found egrets, herons, ospreys, even an eagle. "It's beautiful in there," the singer says.

Buffett doesn't think this is a suitable location for a thousand condominiums or apartments. "Affordable housing," the developer calls it. "Monstrosity" is the term preferred by critics. The Key West City Commission meets Tuesday to discuss the plan. Tonight Buffett will sing at a "Save the Salt Ponds" rally at a restaurant on Duval Street.

This is not the best of news for the developer; Buffett is a popular fellow with a huge following here. The singer already has angered Larry Marks by suggesting that one of Marks' other big condo projects should be used as a bombing target by the Navy.

Though he usually avoids Key West politics like a tropical plague, Buffett says the Salt Ponds are too important to ignore. "We've got enough condos. I mean, how many people can live on this island?"

The strategy to save the Salt Ponds doesn't include another prolonged legal slugfest with Larry Marks—except as a last resort. The new plan is to get the state of Florida to purchase the wetlands outright. There are many who think that Marks would be willing to sell his portion, for the right price. Both the City Commission and the Florida Audubon Society say it's a good idea, and last week the state took the first step toward placing the Salt Ponds on its list of lands to be acquired for preservation.

The problems are time and money: It might take years before the fluids are available. In the meantime, the bulldozers could roll.

Because the Salt Ponds are so remote—a verdant pocket near the airport's runway, far from the Conch Train's view—most tourists and many Key Westers have never visited the beautiful tidal marsh. Buffett says it can't be saved until people know what they're saving.

"It's the same ploy we used with the manatees," he says. "Nobody knew what manatees were, seven years ago."

Buffett's importance in a local controversy like this is inestimable. No other personality is so instantly identified with Key West; no one has done more to popularize the island's charms. If anyone can mobilize Margaritaville, it is he. High-rises have no place in Buffett's lyrical view of paradise.

"If you want to make it look like Fort Lauderdale," he says, "then, hell, go live in Fort Lauderdale."

Still, it's one thing to pick up a guitar and quite another to stalk into City Hall and make a speech. "I promised my grandfather that I would never get into politics," he says with a groan.

With enough attention, the Salt Ponds can be saved. All it takes is money. The 407 acres are divided among more than two dozen landholders, all of whom deserve compensation. Exactly how much compensation will be a matter of some dispute.

The crucial thing is for the city to keep the ponds just as they are until negotiations begin. Buffett, who knows the Keys too well, has a good idea: "They should have Vanna White come down and all the developers gather around the Wheel of Fortune—and we'll all play."

If only it were that easy.

Feds must save wetlands from development November 19, 1986

The destruction of West Dade's wetlands has been momentarily slowed by a bunch of pesky federal bureaucrats who seem to think water quality is more important than new strip malls and townhouses.

At issue is the fate of the Bird Road Everglades Basin, a dozen square miles of marsh along Krome Avenue west of Kendall.

For a long time developers have been slobbering over the prospect of invading and paving this preserve—a notion recently endorsed by county commissioners, who once again have rolled over compliantly at the whiff of money.

This time the money came in hefty election-time checks from developers, their attorneys and members of the Latin Builders Association—those who most eagerly want to bulldoze the wetlands.

To no one's surprise, the landowner's attorney insists that West Dade's Glades aren't worth saving because the land has little environmental value. That this unsupported assertion contradicts the view of virtually every expert public agency doesn't seem to matter to the county commission, which never lets facts get in the way of a favor.

The Bird Road basin and surrounding wetlands feed the Biscayne Aquifer, which filters and supplies our drinking water. Originally the area was closed to development under the county's master plan. Last summer, heavily lobbied by building interests, the commission voted to open several tracts.

Leading the charge was Commissioner Jorge Valdes, who's never met a developer he didn't like. The developers like him, too. Building interests contributed heavily to Valdes' $471,000 re-election campaign this year.

In an inspired, if not transparent, bit of strategy, the commissioner lobbied to build a new high school in the Everglades basin.

It's one thing to indignantly fight the construction of a shopping center, or a high-rise, or a tacky warehouse—but a school? A school is for children. A school is patriotic. Who could argue that we don't need new schools?

No one, certainly. The question is: Of 95 possible sites for the high school, why was the Bird Road Everglades Basin chosen?

The answer is easy—to open up the protected wetlands. You can't have a school in the middle of a marsh. Think of the mosquitoes. Think of the snakes. Think of all that green space just sitting there, not making money.

No, once you have a school, you need a neighborhood to go with it. And you can't very well have a neighborhood without houses and apartments and gas stations and burger joints. This is the history of growth in South Florida.

Proposing a new high school is just a ruse to unlock new territory. It also gives Mayor Steve Clark and other county commissioners something respectable to hide behind when explaining their votes. What's harder to explain is why they ignored the advice of their own environmental staff, and waived all the usual requirements for the new school site.

Luckily, the future of the Glades does not ultimately rest with politicians who obediently kiss the rings of big-time zoning lawyers. It rests with federal officials who take a broader and less predatory view of Florida's withering resources.

The Environmental Protection Agency says the Bird Road basin is a lousy site for a new school. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agrees. So does the National Marine Fisheries Service. They say that the basin, while not pristine, is important enough not to be disturbed.

The issue has gone to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which can kill the project outright, or demand an environmental study that might take years to complete.

As you might suspect, a thorough scientific survey is the last thing county administrators want to see. They've asked the Corps to please just skip all the environmental stuff and approve the new school as fast as possible.

And, just to be sure its letter made sense, the county cleverly let the landowner's lawyer write it.

Ill-conceived landfill plan begets smoke April 6, 1990

In North Dade, the Munisport landfill is burning, and has been for weeks.

The city of North Miami can't put the fire out because it doesn't have a fire department. Dade County, which has the trucks, apparently doesn't do underground fires.

The adjacent city of North Miami Beach, which is getting smoked out, is now considering a lawsuit to force somebody to extinguish the blaze. It doesn't seem like too much to ask, but this is Munisport, where nothing is simple.

To begin with, it wasn't supposed to be a dump.

Twenty years ago North Miami bought a 350-acre tract from the county with the promise that the land would be used for public recreation. The purchase was financed with a $12 million bond issue, which the taxpayers of North Miami are still paying off.

The original plan called for a swimming pool, tennis courts and two municipal golf courses—rolling emerald hills. Trouble was, no natural hills could be found. So North Miami agreed to allow the developer, Munisport Inc., to dump so-called "clean" fill to raise the elevation to a level suitable for golfers.

As it turned out, what got dumped in the landfill was not always clean—acetone, hospital waste, veterinary remains, chemical drums and, by some accounts, Freon and asbestos.

The perils should have been obvious. Munisport sits next to Florida International University and the Oleta River State Recreation Area. Heavy rains could leach toxins from the landfill into public waters—and that's exactly what happened.

Dumping continued day and night, and hills of waste rose majestically. Years passed, but not a single verdant fairway materialized.

In March 1976, Munisport and the city of North Miami received an after-the-fact permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fill 291 acres for a "recreational" facility. Mangroves were to be destroyed. Garbage was to be piled in 103 acres of wetlands.

Lots of people in North Dade got upset. So did the Environmental Protection Agency, and in 1981 it vetoed the Corps permit.

Later Munisport was found to be so contaminated that it was placed on the EPA Superfund cleanup list, and that's where the battle has simmered for years.

The city of North Miami—whose negligence and bungling created the fiasco—has insisted the landfill really isn't so bad. A high-powered Washington law firm was hired to lobby congressmen into pressuring the EPA to lay off.

North Miami said the state was perfectly capable of cleaning the dump without federal supervision. City officials wanted Munisport "de-listed" from the Superfund so it could be sold and developed. Yes, developed.

At City Hall there was talk that Hyatt was interested in building a high-rise hotel on the Munisport site (probably as soon as they finished the Hyatt Chernobyl).

Meanwhile the EPA was reporting that the lakes on the dump site showed excessive levels of cyanide and ammonia. The mangroves were tainted with lead and silver. The fish had arsenic and PCBs in levels that posed a cancer risk to human beings. Aquatic life in north Biscayne Bay was threatened by the contaminated runoff.

North Miami's answer to this nauseating litany was to threaten to sue EPA.

On March 18, EPA finally recommended a plan to remove the ammonia from the wetlands at Munisport. Some environmentalists say the proposal is inadequate because it leaves the state with the most crucial task—cleaning up the landfill itself.

Before that can happen, somebody will have to get a hose and put out the fire.

Everyone agrees that Munisport should be cleaned up immediately. The questions are: Who pays for it—and who decides when it's really safe.

Maybe some day it will be a golf course, just like they promised 20 years ago. They can always sell gas masks in the pro shop.

Key plan shows just how low developers go February 13, 1991

The battle to save Soldier Key isn't finished.

Faced with a rejection by the National Park Service, developers seeking to convert the tiny islet into a pseudo-tropical tourist trap are appealing their case to Washington.

The group includes the folks at Blockbuster Entertainment, who have attached the company's name, logo and slogan ("Wow! What a Difference") to this abominable scheme for exploiting the island.

Though privately held, Soldier Key is located in the protected waters of Biscayne National Park, a few miles south of Cape Florida. The government has tried to purchase the island before, but the owners have always held out for more money. Last year they turned down Uncle Sam's offer of $135,000 and instead sold the option to a Fort Lauderdale-based tour operator, Florida Princess Cruise Line. Initially, the project called for shore-to-shore cabanas, ersatz beaches and a gift shop to sell the sort of tasteful merchandise that heatstroked, booze-addled tourists seem to favor. In the face of a decidedly unenthusiastic response, the developers slightly scaled down their plans for a Soldier Key resort, though it would still be a blight on the bay.

Forget pelicans, porpoises and sea breeze; think cocktail bars, steel drums and limbo madness.

Park superintendent James Sanders has officially notified the promoter that he opposes the day-cruise project for several reasons. A rare sea turtle, the hawksbill, successfully nested on Soldier Key last year for the first time since 1981 .The presence of five hundred carousing beachcombers might discourage future visits from the shy, endangered animals.

Beyond the turtle problem is the impact of cruise parties upon the whole park, one of the most ecologically sensitive marine preserves in the country. Soldier Key is the first link in a delicate necklace of small islands that the National Park Service has been acquiring for preservation. Tom Brown, the park system's associate regional director for planning, says that Soldier Key should be "maintained in its natural condition."

Which doesn't include the concrete swimming pool now planned for construction. Opponents, including Everglades Earth First!, plan a protest regatta to the island Feb. 23.

Recently the government substantially hiked its cash offer for Soldier Key, but the option holders didn't accept. Through congressional channels, they are quietly trying to persuade high officials in Washington, including Secretary of Interior Manuel Lujan, to overrule the park service and allow the island to be developed.

Such a reversal would be unusual, but not unprecedented. Blockbuster Entertainment chairman Wayne Huizenga is a wealthy Republican campaign contributor whose phone calls would probably be swiftly returned, were he to express a personal interest in getting the Soldier Key project approved.

Three and one-half acres isn't much to work with, but promoter Robert F. Lambert hopes to make the most of it. An optimistic brochure for Blockbuster Cruises invites travelers to "our private island in the Bay" for a day of sailing, sunning, swimming, snorkeling and "live calypso music."

Finally! Something to drown out the cries of those pesky seagulls.

The nighttime excursion sounds even more enchanting. I quote from the brochure: "Sailing south through the Biscayne Bay, witness a beautiful sunset as the moon rises over Miami."

That will be a neat trick, getting the moon to come up in the west. We can hardly wait. But there's even more tropical excitement after our ship drops anchor off Soldier Key: "Ashore, guests will be treated to a sumptuous Island luau under the skies and a live native review. Dance to the sounds of our steel drums or see 'how low you can go' in our limbo contest."

How low, indeed. Take a perfectly lovely island and turn it into the Tiki Bar from Hell.

All things considered, we'd rather stay home and rent a movie.

Pipeline crisis could turn Bay into cesspool June 13, 1993

Think what would happen if your toilet somehow started flushing into your swimming pool. Bubble, bubble, bubble—until the pool was up to the brim: 15,000 gallons of you-know-what.

Now picture 6,000 swimming pools full of the rancid stuff, and imagine that much—90 million gallons—pouring into Biscayne Bay every single day.

That's what will happen if the old sewer pipe running underwater from mainland Miami to Virginia Key breaks. The bay will turn from blue to brown, and we're not talking pastels.

Fearing a Chernobyl-under-the-palms, the Environmental Protection Agency has sued to force Dade to rebuild its disintegrating sewers as soon as possible. Local and state agencies belatedly began brainstorming the crisis a few months ago, but the feds aren't waiting. The situation is that dire.

Two good things might come from the lawsuit. First, a new cross-bay pipeline could be built in time to avoid the catastrophe that would result from the old pipe fracturing.

Second, prosecutors could block most new construction while the sewer system is being rebuilt. Theoretically, more hookups wouldn't be permitted until more capacity is added. At least for a while, growth in Dade might slow to a healthier trickle.

A few no-growth years is the best thing that could happen here. Breathing room is what people need, especially the thousands still struggling to rebuild after Andrew.

Reckless, runaway expansion is what caused the system to fail in the first place. Faithful to the developers who bankroll their campaigns, past county commissioners approved one subdivision after another—tens of thousands of new toilets—even as sewers began to burst, literally.

Thanks to a few corrupted bums, we're now facing a septic eruption that will do for Miami's tourism what Exxon did for bird watching in Alaska.

Disaster could strike any time. The 72-inch pipe across Biscayne Bay is aged and perilously overloaded. Hydrogen sulfide gas (an aromatic product of human waste) is aggressively eating the metal from the inside out.

Much of Dade's waste is treated at Virginia Key so it travels silent and deadly across the bay. In 1992, the grand jury said the Biscayne sewer line was "a time bomb."

For years, the county environmental office has badgered the Water and Sewer Department to start work on a larger pipeline. And, for years, the Water and Sewer people have pondered and hypothesized and written reports on the problem.

Meanwhile, the building frenzy continued. The sewers got more full, and the pipes got more fragile. The most recent failure occurred at Easter, tainting the water from the Julia Tuttle Causeway to the Rickenbacker. And that was a relatively piddling leak, only 20 million gallons.

When the mother lode ruptures, forget about diving, sailing or swimming. Forget about the fish and the manatees. Biscayne Bay will look, and smell, like an immense tropical cesspool.

Fact: Fecal contamination is very bad for tourism. Fact: A moratorium on sewer hookups will be costly to powerful builders.

For one or both of those reasons, a new sewer line will be built across the bay. Pray that the old one holds out until the new one is finished. In the meantime, enjoy the lull.

Because when the new pipe is done, developers will stampede the county seeking thousands and thousands of new sewer hookups. And the commissioners will say … yes, yes, yes!

Same old story. Same old you-know-what.

'Revitalization' a threat to Virginia Key April 3, 1997

The cash-starved city of Miami is again trying to deliver Virginia Key to favored developers and concessionaires.

Under the pretense of "revitalization," nine parcels currently marked for conservation are proposed for rezoning. The result could be hotels, marinas, shops and even houses.

Planners insist the zoning changes are technical corrections that won't affect the character of the island, but there's no reason for optimism. The stewardship of Virginia Key has been one of bungling, neglect and political favoritism.

Practically everything the city touched has turned to failure. The Marine Stadium has been a wreck since Hurricane Andrew. The beach and park on the Atlantic side—refurbished a few years ago at great expense—is now closed, supposedly because of the budget crisis.

It's as if Miami purposely abandoned Virginia Key and let it crumble, in order to stir support for development.

Mayor Joe Carollo has grandiose dreams for reviving the bayfront lagoon area by the Marine Stadium: hotels, restaurants, shops and a Jet Ski extravaganza that would bring needed lease revenues to City Hall.

At least, that's the pitch. In reality, the "technical" rezoning opens the door for transforming the island into another Dinner Key—an aesthetic calamity, and a grab bag for political cronies of commissioners.

For years the city has been aching to carve Virginia Key into a resort. The chief obstacles have been public opposition, and a large, odoriferous sewer plant.

In 1995 commissioners endorsed a preposterous proposal to put an RV park on 153 acres. The "ecologically sensitive" project included 300 motel units, a convenience store and miniature golf.

Voters, who weren't fooled by the city's tree-hugging hype, killed the plan.

This time around, commissioners don't want the public mucking up their big ideas for Virginia Key. Conveniently, rezoning can be accomplished without referendum.

Miami planning chief Jack Luft says there's no reason to worry. The changes, he says, actually will help preserve the island's unspoiled stretches.

Removing the "conservation" designation seems an odd way to protect land, but the city does many odd things at Virginia Key.

Twenty years ago the city leased out prime bayfront to the private Miami Rowing Club. Price: a whopping $100 annually.

Eventually the rowers built an 11,000-square-foot clubhouse, a swimming pool, a banquet hall and bar. In 1987 it was revealed that the club was renting out the facilities, and in one year had collected $147,000.

Guess how much the city got. And when the rowers needed storage space, commissioners generously let them fence off 10,000 square feet of land.

At the time, beet-faced officials denied any connection to the fact that then-City Manager Cesar Odio was a former president and life member of the rowing club.

Another funny coincidence: According to members, security services at the club once were provided by a firm owned by a young city commissioner named Carollo. Small world, isn't it?

Ironically, Miami wouldn't be broke today if it hadn't mismanaged city holdings and given away so many costly favors; if it had collected reasonable rents and leases (not to mention a few debts).

It would be good if the ghost-town lagoon area could be "revitalized" without ruining the rest of Virginia Key, but promises of preservation seem far-fetched. The city can't take care of a beach, much less an entire island.

Rezoning is just the first step toward another giveaway and you don't need to be downwind from the sewer plant to smell the truth.

Explanation for road widening quite a stretch June 15, 1997

By a slim vote, the South Florida Water Management District last week launched one of the nuttiest schemes in its long nutty history:

Widening the 18 miles between the mainland and the Florida Keys from two lanes to three, with a fourth phantom lane to be prepared but left unpaved.

The new paved lane will be northbound, ostensibly to improve hurricane evacuation. The unpaved Mystery Lane will run southbound, and nobody in authority has convincingly explained its purpose.

Why scrape an extra swath along sensitive marshlands if it's not meant to be paved? Because it is meant to be paved, as soon as local opposition dies down.

Widening the so-called Stretch isn't about hurricane egress or driver safety, it's about cramming more warm bodies into the Keys. It's about selling more rum runners, T-shirts and time shares.

And, most significantly, it's about boosting road capacity to allow a wave of new construction along the islands.

Those most eager for the project are commercial interests and land speculators in the Middle and Lower Keys. The people most adamantly against it are those who live in the Upper Keys and, ironically, drive the hairy Stretch more than anyone.

Originally, the plan called for widening the entire 18-mile leg, which is now two-laned with intermittent passing zones. Opposition to four-laning was so fierce that planners devised a bizarre alternative—two lanes north, one lane south, and the unpaved "footprint" of another southbounder.

In case of what? Unless you're traveling to the Keys by horseback or by wagon train, an unpaved lane is of little use.

Nobody down here was fooled by the phony "compromise." Opponents remained vocal, but the county pushed ahead.

A state hearing officer eventually approved the project. Incredibly, he ruled that expanding the main corridor into the Keys would have no secondary effects; not on the environment, not on growth, not on the quality of life.

Just as Alligator Alley hasn't had an impact on traffic and crime in Naples and Fort Myers. Just as the Sawgrass Expressway hasn't disastrously urbanized northwest Broward. Much.

Safety is a bogus issue. Widening a fast highway always draws more cars, and more cars mean more serious accidents.

Supporters of a new Stretch also invoke images of hurricane stampedes as a reason to widen the road—a groundless argument meant to mask the true agenda: to bring in more people.

The Mystery Lane is no mystery at all. Paving it at a near-future date will be easy, because the water management board will say yes. A slave to politics, the board virtually always says yes.

For folks who live in already-crowded Key Largo, and who don't especially want the Turnpike in their front yard, the last hope lies with two men—Col. Terry Rice of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and former U.S. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen.

Lehtinen, a longtime advocate for the Everglades, plans to appeal the state's decision, on behalf of Keys conservation groups. He'll argue that four-laning the Stretch will imperil the water and wildlife of the islands.

In the meantime, construction cannot begin without a green light from the Army Corps. Rice, the agency's chief troubleshooter on Everglades restoration, has serious concerns about the far-reaching effects of expanding the entry to the Keys.

Rice is also curious about why the state agreed to the weird idea of a phantom southbound lane. "Why should we fill wetlands," he asked, "to make a lane they say they aren't going to pave?"

Sounds like a ploy to run a big-city freeway straight into Key Largo, but maybe it's not. Maybe it's just the world's most expensive jogging path.