Dance of the Reptiles (6 page)

While the efficacy of some manatee protection measures can and should be debated, it’s ridiculous to argue that the critter is no longer endangered.

Florida has more than 800,000 registered boats and only about 3,200 sea cows. Even when you’re lucky enough to see one in the wild, it’s usually striped with prop scars.

Advocates of “delisting” cite an increase in the manatees counted during aerial surveys. They say that the population has reached a level at which strict regulations are no longer necessary. In other words, there are enough manatees swimming around that we can start killing them off again with impunity.

The Fish and Wildlife Service recently bucked its own scientists by approving a plan that would allow the delisting of manatees even if their population wasn’t growing.

The FWS said that an annual mortality of 200 to 300 adult males is acceptable (to all, presumably, except the doomed manatees). Meanwhile, state wildlife officials also have agreed to reassess the species’ designation as endangered.

The irony is, there wouldn’t be any sea cows left to argue about if they hadn’t been protected for the last three decades.
No less important than the laws and the speed zones is the heightened public awareness that resulted.

Today the manatee is a beloved Florida icon, celebrated with license plates, Jimmy Buffett tunes, and cuddly stuffed toys. Homely as they are, sea cows are adored by tourists and natives alike.

Idling my boat through a channel instead of racing full throttle is a small sacrifice for the thrill of sharing the water with these ancient and fascinating behemoths.

In 1999, the year that glib Mr. Hopping and the marine manufacturers declared war, 82 manatees were killed by boaters—the most ever. During the last 23 months, 150 more have perished by propeller.

Such sad accidents are inevitable. Sea cows go wherever they please, and it’s impossible to protect them all the time. That doesn’t mean that we should stop trying.

Despite what lobbyists say, saving a few more manatees won’t endanger Florida’s huge marine industry. With input from anglers and boaters, as well as biologists, it shouldn’t be hard to come up with a sensible long-term plan.

How many manatees is enough? What an insipid question.

It’s more appropriate to ask just how many Wade Hoppings we need.

May 16, 2004

Fishy Tale About Timber Lobbyist, Wild Salmon

President Bush has found an intriguing way to skate around the Endangered Species Act, the wildlife-protection law that has caused so many headaches for his pals in timber, oil, and real-estate development.

In a move that surprised residents of the Pacific Northwest,
the administration has decided to start counting hatchery fish when determining whether certain types of wild salmon should remain on the federal endangered list.

This proposal didn’t come from biologists, many of whom consider hatchery fry to be genetically inferior to wild salmon. Nor did the plan come from the administration’s own appointed panel of experts, whose findings were dismissed by the president’s men.

Actually, it was a lawyer named Mark C. Rutzick who first dreamed up the idea of including hatchery-bred salmon when counting the species. The intent was to boost the reported fish population to such levels that the species might be removed from the endangered list and no longer be protected.

At the time, Rutzick’s prize clients were timber companies, often under fire for trashing streams and rivers. He led the fight against conservation rules intended to protect fish and animal habitats from the effects of forestry operations.

Presented with such credentials, it’s no wonder that President Bush appointed Rutzick as a legal adviser to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Who better than an agent of the logging industry to oversee the future of America’s 26 imperiled species of salmon?

Here in Florida, we have no salmon, but we do have a variety of wildlife at risk of being wiped off the planet, including the panther, the Key deer, the Miami blue butterfly, and the homely short-nosed sturgeon.

In all, federal and state officials have classified at least 57 Florida species as either endangered or threatened. None stirs more emotion than the ponderous manatee, which is at the center of a battle pitting environmentalists against the recreational marine industry and waterfront developers.

The Legislature’s sympathies were never in doubt. Last
month it passed a bill that would severely limit the ability of state wildlife authorities to set boating speed zones or restrict dock building in areas where manatees congregate.

The measure, now on Gov. Jeb Bush’s desk, is endorsed by some of the same interest groups that have been lobbying to get manatees scratched off the endangered list altogether. Could their campaign be given new life by the administration’s novel hatchery concept?

Obviously, farming manatees would pose some unique challenges. For starters, sea cows are considerably larger than salmon—an adult specimen weighs anywhere from 800 to 1,200 pounds. Even newborn manatees are chubby, averaging more than 60 pounds. Consequently, the holding tanks will have to be very spacious.

Then there’s the fertility issue. A female salmon lays 2,000 to 10,000 eggs every spawning season, but the average female manatee gives birth to only a single calf every two to five years. So the process of accumulating baby manatees will take a very long time.

And while mother salmon typically lay their eggs and take off, mother manatees insist on sticking around for a couple of years to nurse and raise the calves. This could get expensive, because manatees eat the equivalent of 10 to 15 percent of their own body weight every day.

So the grocery bill for fresh greens will be very high.

Finally, there’s the problem of adaptability. When you put baby salmon into a river, they almost always swim away—even the dumbest, most inbred hatchery fish. Manatees are more likely to be confused by their sudden freedom, especially after being fed and pampered for so long. The spectacle of hundreds of young sea cows moping around a river, waiting for handouts, could be a definite problem, PR-wise.

None of these hurdles is insurmountable, though. Just as
the White House relied on a timber advocate for advice on salmon, perhaps it could turn to the makers of Jet Skis for guidance on manatee management.

If such a bold approach were successful, we might see a day when a hatchery-style census is applied to Florida’s remaining panthers and Key deer, perhaps counting zoo specimens as part of the natural population.

Anything is possible when we’ve got a president so clearly committed to pruning the nation’s roster of endangered species down to a manageable two or three critters.

May 29, 2005

Vigilance Falls Woefully Short

If Miami-Dade commissioners sell out to developers and vote to move westward the county’s Urban Development Boundary, thousands of acres of wetlands will be open to destruction.

The decision would effectively sabotage the $8 billion Everglades restoration plan and would further imperil South Florida’s future water supply.

In theory, wetlands are supposed to be protected under the Clean Water Act by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Since the federal government is an equal partner with Florida in the much-hyped Everglades project, you might reasonably assume that the Corps would make at least a token effort at vigilance.

But you’d be wrong.

If the UDB gets moved, all remaining wetlands along the rim of the Everglades are in danger. Judging by its past actions, the Corps will bow to the developers as meekly as the politicians do.

A series of superb articles in
The St. Petersburg Times
has
documented that at least 84,000 acres of wetlands in Florida have been obliterated since 1990. That was the year that the first President Bush unveiled a federal initiative called “no net loss.” The idea was that developers would be required to replace the pristine marshes and swamps that they destroyed.

“It’s a huge scam,” Steve Brooker told the
Times
. For 15 years he reviewed wetlands permits for the Army Corps in Florida. “A make-believe program,” agreed Vic Anderson, who spent 30 years with the Corps.

Basically, here’s how it is meant to work. Through a process known as mitigation, developers are allowed to drain and pave a wetland if they agree to re-create another one somewhere else.

Unfortunately, constructing a shopping mall is much easier (and much more lucrative) than constructing an ecologically healthy swamp. Many of the artificially devised wetlands are nothing but glorified rain puddles.

Not that the Army Corps would ever notice. To this day, the agency has no system for tracking the success or failure of mitigation projects. Usually, it’s content to take the developer’s word.

According to the
Times
’s investigation, the feds approve more wetland destruction in Florida than in any other state.

How easy is it to turn a marsh into asphalt and concrete? Between 1999 and 2003, the Corps approved more than 12,000 wetland destruction permits here.

Number rejected: One.

Agency officials say their job is not to “impede” development but, rather, to work with developers during the permitting process to minimize the project’s impact.

Look around Florida and see what a swell job they’ve done.

In Pensacola, a top Democratic fund-raiser named Fred
Levin and his brother were allowed to erect five 21-story condos on prime beach marshlands, despite the objections of the Environmental Protection Agency, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service.

The mitigation was a flop. The man-made wetland was so feeble that it was destroyed by the first hurricane to blow through.

Here’s how the “no net loss” policy really works: Developers call up their congressman or senator, to whose campaigns they’ve generously donated, and whine that the Army Corps is dragging its feet on a wetland permit. The congressman or senator promptly picks up the phone or fires off a letter, and magically, the developer’s permit is expedited.

This scenario was documented in shameful detail by the
Times
. Both Republicans and Democrats (Sen. Bill Nelson, Rep. Alcee Hastings, even Everglades champion Bob Graham) have intervened to hasten the demise of a wetland.

A classic example was the time in 1995 when then–U.S. Sen. Connie Mack chewed out Col. Terry Rice, then head of the Army Corps in Florida, for taking too long on a permit application from Florida Gulf Coast University.

Plans for the new university called for removing 75 acres of wetlands near Fort Myers owned by Ben Hill Griffin III, the citrus heir and a heavyweight political donor. Griffin had offered the tract to the university and wanted to build a huge development around it. Not long after Mack’s angry phone call, Rice approved the wetlands destruction.

Construction commenced, and soon three feet of water covered the site. The problem hasn’t gone away. Since FGCU opened, it’s been cited three times for illegally pumping water from its campus into nearby marshes.

That’s what you get for building on a swamp, a long and greedy tradition here. Most of western Broward, including
the whole community of Weston, was once wetlands that nurtured the Everglades.

Which is why those seeking to dissolve the UDB in Miami-Dade aren’t terribly worried about the feds interfering with their plans later on. Shoma Homes, Lowe’s Home Improvement Centers, D. R. Horton—all have lobbyists who know exactly whom to call in Washington, D.C.

No developer has more clout than Lennar Corp, which is itching to cram thousands of homes on 981 acres outside Florida City, along the edge of Everglades National Park.

That single project could be fatal to Everglades restoration, but don’t expect the Army Corps to ride to the rescue. The agency is merely a minor nuisance for big developers with friends in high places.

The record speaks for itself: In only 14 years, 84,000 acres of wetlands wiped out.

No net loss? Only for those pocketing the profits.

September 25, 2005

In a Storm, We’re All Sitting Ducks

The only predictable thing about this hellish hurricane season is how soon its lessons will be forgotten.

Communities flattened by Katrina and Rita will be rebuilt gallantly but with little thought given to the next storm. You and I will pay for this with our federal taxes and usurious insurance premiums.

And when the next hurricane hits, we’ll suck it up and do it all over again. That’s how it goes.

Once upon a time, the vulnerable temperate shores of North America were protected by dunes, barrier islands, and vast wetlands that absorbed tidal surges and also served as windbreaks. Today much of the natural buffer against hurricanes
is gone, wiped out in the name of progress. Millions of acres of wetlands have been drained and paved. Many barrier islands are now resort developments, and the beachfront dunes have been replaced by high-rise condos and hotels.

Densely populated urban centers have arisen in locations that are best not inhabited year-round. It’s hard to imagine the ancient Romans constructing a city nine or 10 feet below sea level without planning for floods, but that’s what happened in modern New Orleans.

For sheer arrogance toward the weather, no place beats Florida. Every millimeter of our 1,300-mile coastline is at risk of getting slammed by a killer storm, but that hasn’t discouraged us from building to the water’s edge.

And then rebuilding in the same dumb place if a hurricane knocks down what was there.

You’d think we would have learned more from Andrew, which pulverized South Miami-Dade in 1992. The storm exposed shocking incompetence and negligence by some home builders, and also those who were supposed to regulate them. Stronger building codes were finally passed, but no effort was made to reduce density along the coastline or prevent future overdevelopment. Just the opposite has been happening.

Today wetlands in Florida are being bulldozed at a record pace. Since Andrew, thousands upon thousands of new residents have been packed into burgeoning coastal communities, many of which were raked by last year’s quartet of storms. Even the sturdiest structure isn’t safe from the Biblical-scale storm surge delivered by Katrina or Rita. If you’re on the coast, you’re toast.