Kick Ass (52 page)

What took place in the Keys wouldn’t have surprised Jacques Cousteau, though it would have saddened him. He spent a lifetime crusading against the foolhardy and wanton pillage of lakes, rivers and seas.

He tried to teach the difference between wise harvest and reckless butchery, and tried to show why all living things beneath the water’s surface, from the regal blue whale to the unglamorous toadfish, have value far beyond the dollar.

It wasn’t easy to open this remote new world, or to make outsiders share his awe. In the 19405 Cousteau helped invent the first aqualung, enabling humans to breathe underwater. Thus scuba was born, and soon the oceans had a political constituency.

Judging by the millions who dive and snorkel for the beauty, and by the millions more who flock to the Seaquarium and other marine exhibits, Cousteau’s legacy is phenomenal.

Largely because of his pioneering, most who are lucky enough to see a wild sea turtle don’t feel an impulse to spear it. Rather, they feel what they ought to feel, what their children feel: curiosity and wonderment.

Others feel nothing, yet Cousteau never gave up trying to enlighten them. He could have used another 87 years.

Same old song: Greed drowns another species

December 28, 1997

It’s a tiny wisp of a bird, the Cape Sable seaside sparrow. You probably won’t even notice after it’s gone.

When the floodgates crank open at a dike west of Miami, millions of gallons of water will surge south toward a remote section of Everglades

National Park, home to one of the endangered sparrow’s last breeding colonies.

The birds, which nest in grasses close to the ground, could be flooded out. Many experts believe the colony is unlikely to survive.

Everglades water is watched closely by government agencies. This year the levels are high again because of abundant rain. That’s usually good for birds and wildlife, but not always. This year it’s definitely not so good for the Cape Sable seaside sparrow.

There’s so much water in the Everglades that the folks in charge need to flush the overflow someplace. If they send it to the park’s eastern marshes, it might damage some homes that were built there.

So instead they’re preparing to send the water farther west, where it could wash out a few hundred olive-colored songbirds, birds so rare that most Floridians have never laid eyes on them.

Pumping, due to start last week, was postponed because of publicity. A hard rain could force the issue, a decision to be made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District.

Officials in those agencies aren’t happy about annihilating the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, but they say they’ve got few options. They say they’re not allowed to flood private property.

That would be property known as the 81/2 Square Mile Area, notable as one of the only sites west of the Everglades levee where houses went upabout 350 of them. Why that was permitted to happen is no mystery. Somebody was trying to make money.

Now, whenever there’s heavy rainfall, the residents of the 8 1/2Square Mile Area get flooded. That’s because they live in a swamp, and swamps flood; it literally comes with the territory. And when flooding occurs, the folks who live out there complain. Who wouldn’t?

Allowing houses to be built on the wet side of a levee wasn’t the most stupid thing Dade County politicians have ever done, but it’s close. The price of that stupidity might well be the extermination of another species.

All that overflow water is being aimed away from the misbegotten houses in the 81/2 Square Mile Area, and straight toward the nesting grounds of the Cape Sable seasides. Biologists say this will be the fourth consecutive season that the sparrows cannot breed in the western part of the park, leaving only about 270 there alive.

Other colonies occupy eastern marshes, but because of water diversion practices, those areas will soon be too dry for nesting. Experts believe it won’t be long before all the birds die off.

The story is a bleak echo. The last U.S. bird species to become extinct was another Florida sparrow, the dusky seaside. Once thriving in wetlands near the Kennedy Space Center, the dusky was done in by overdevelopment and pesticides.

Everglades National Park is supposed to offer sanctuary from such man-made threats. Indeed, birds living within the park’s vast boundaries don’t see many bulldozers or crop dusters.

Water is a more inescapable presence. The stuff that could drown out the Cape Sable seaside sparrows will be pumped into the park from conservation areas to the north. Efforts to redistribute the flow more evenly will probably come too late to save the birds.

A study is being done to help decide whether all the houses and lots in the 81/2 Square Mile Area should be repurchased and returned to a natural state. In the meantime, if it comes to a policy choice between soaking a bird and soaking somebody’s carpet, the birds will probably lose.

Too bad they can’t learn to build their nests in taller grass.

Too bad we can’t learn not to build our subdivisions in swamps.[“#chapter_18”]

Small Victories

City gives kids a great reason to give thanks

November 26, 1986

Now it will be a good Thanksgiving at 1640 S. Bayshore Drive.

Now the kids who live there can stay as long as they need. The Miami City Commission said so Tuesday in an act of decency and wisdom.

The house is owned by CHARLEE, Inc., a nonprofit group that places abused and neglected children in foster home settings. Opened in July 1985, the home on South Bayshore operated successfully and without controversy, until a few neighbors complained this year.

They didn’t complain so much about the kids; it was the idea of such a place in their neighborhood. They said it wasn’t really a foster home, but a therapeutic facility. They said it was a zoning matter.

Three years ago the city said that CHARLEE houses qualified as foster homes, and should be treated the same way. This year a different zoning official gave a less favorable opinion.

The dispute could have shut down the Bayshore house and three others in the city. Doris Capri, CHARLEE’s executive director, said: “The majority of our children do not have healthy homes to return to.”

Curiously, the two most prominent opponents of the Bayshore home, lawyer A. J. Barranco and County Judge Murray Klein, did not appear at Tuesday’s meeting. City Hall filled with other neighbors who felt strongly both ways. An attorney for CHARLEE got up to talk about definitions. The city zoning man got up to disagree. The commissioners wrangled about concepts like “equitable estoppel.”

While all this was going on, the kids were home doing their school-work. The house parents, Mima and Fadi Aftimos, kept it a secret that Tuesday was the big day. They didn’t want the children to worry. The children have been worried most of their lives.

Some of them have been beaten and sexually molested by their real parents. The home on Bayshore is the safest they’ve ever known.

Back at the commission chambers, everybody was agreeing that CHARLEE was a wonderful program, and that the children now living at the Bayshore home are model kids. Even Commissioner J. L. Plummer, who wanted the issue taken to a full-blown public hearing, felt obliged to say: “I gotta tell you, I think the CHARLEE program is doing a terrific job. Let’s put that in the record.”

And having put that in the record, Plummer then launched into a rather odd and irrelevant inquisition into the finances at 1640 S. Bayshorehow much are the house parents paid ($9,000 each), how much the state pays CHARLEE for each foster child ($53 per day) and so on. This would have been understandable if the city of Miami were paying the bills, but it isn’t. The house is owned outright by CHARLEE and every dime of expenses is paid by the state.

The real issue was not zoning, finance, or improper definitions. It was the childrenwhether or not they belonged.

“These are not juvenile delinquents,” said attorney Gary Brooks.

Said one neighbor, “Give us some control, that’s all we ask.”

Said another: “Are we, the residents of this area, going to add to their neglect and abuse?

Let’s do what is right and just.”

Another man implied that he saw one of the youngsters jump from the roof into their swimming pool.

“My kids do the same thing,” remarked Mayor Xavier Suarez, “and I don’t even have a pool.”

The house on Bayshore is only a few blocks down the road from City Hall. One of the commissioners, Rosario Kennedy, actually took the time to visit. She talked with the children and their foster parents, and even their teachers in school.

On Tuesday, after listening to nearly two hours of debate over whether the place should be zoned as a foster home or something else, Kennedy finally just said:

“All I saw was a very neat house with two caring parents

All I saw was a house full of caring and love.”

The vote to reverse the zoning administrator was 4-1, with Plummer dissenting. Afterward Fadi Aftimos couldn’t wait to get home to tell the kids they can stay. No one needs to hear it more.

Politicians waking up to the green vote

November 5, 1990

Another election season comes to an end, leaving many voters confused, disappointed, unenlightened, uninspired and depressed.

Deeply depressed. One more day of campaign commercials, and we’ll all need a dose of Prozac. Bob Martinez is still rhapsodizing about the electric chair, while Lawton Chiles has enlisted the sheriff of Sumter CountySumter County!to tell us crime’s a darn big problem.

Is there any hope for Florida?

Maybe a shred. Somehow the citizens have managed to educate office-seekers about some new priorities. For the first time, the issues of conservation and “growth management” have been pushed toward the top of the political agenda. It doesn’t mean candidates must listen, but they’d better act like they’re listening.

In 1986, Martinez got elected without mentioning the environment. In 1990, it’s the emotional centerpiece of his reelection campaign. Television commercials show him ambling along a beach, with a dolphin splashing in the surf. All that’s missing is a tame Key deer and a baby manatee.

The mood of the state certainly has changed.

The governor isn’t alone in his reverie with Nature; Chiles, too, has been touting his own environmental record. It’s not insignificant that both candidates have spent so much time and money trying to out-Audubon each otherthe votes are waiting to be won.

In future campaigns, you’ll see other politicians paddling the Suwannee and hiking the Big Cypress. Such photo opportunities will be staged to show how much these folks really truly care, which might or might not be a lie.

One thing they do care about is preserving their careers, which is why you don’t hear anyone campaigning in favor of new offshore oil leases, more beachfront high-rises, or more cane fields near the Everglades.

Not so long ago, environmentalists were treated as a fringe movement to be ignored or ridiculed, depending on where you happened to be campaigning. How things have changed. Today in Dade County, an endorsement from Marjory Stoneman Douglas gets you more votes (if not more campaign contributions) than an endorsement from the Latin Builders Association.

All over urban Florida, people are upset about what’s happening to the place they live. Sick of the clotted traffic, the rising crime, the overcrowded schools, the destruction of coastlines, the paving and subdividing and mailing of what was once a beautiful place.

The message from the cities and suburbs is strong and clear. A threshold of public tolerance has been breached: Metastatic growth is no longer seen as necessary for prosperity. That Florida remains one of the fastest-growing states is nothing to brag about; it’s terrifying, given the condition of our budget, our water supply, our highways, our schools, and our jails.

Many who moved down here are discouraged by the deteriorating quality of life and angry enough to punish those responsible. Voting is a good way to start. Consequently, politicians from Pensacola to the Keys are leaping on the Big Green bandwagon and proclaiming their ardor for tall trees and clean air and blue water. Some are sincere, and some are just scared.

The trouble is, it’s hard to tell the phonies from the real thing. One clue is to check where the campaign funds are coming fromand in that department, not much has changed.The big money still flows from developers, and rare is the candidate who mails back the check.

Still, we can hope that some have gotten it through their thick skulls that it’s a new day. Anti-development feelings that simmered below the surface 10 years ago are boiling over now. Lip service might get you elected, but it won’t keep you there.

In the end, the private motives of officeholders aren’t as relevant as their actions. If they cast one vote that saves a park or cleans up a river, it really doesn’t matter if they did it out of passion, or cold naked fear. Just so it gets done.

At last, Florida has a program worth keeping

November 10, 1991

Occasionally we find intelligent signs of life in Florida government. Occasionally something actually works.

One quiet success story is Preservation 2000, an ambitious program designed to buy up endangered lands and save them from development. The first purchase occurred in Sarasota County914 acres once marked for residential housing would instead be annexed to a state park. Since then, more than $90 million has been spent on river basins and marshes, from the Withlacoochee to the edge of the Everglades.

“It’s the only happy story in Florida,” says Eric Draper of the Nature Conservancy, which compiled a list of top-priority purchases for the state.

The largest land acquisition program in the nation, Preservation 2000 owes its existence to former Gov. Bob Martinez. Searching for a constituency among environmentalists, Martinez had proposed P2000 as a way to preserve sensitive lands, while ensuring that property owners were fairly compensated.

The concept got support from respected conservation groups, so the Legislature went along. “They didn’t realize what a good thing they’d created,” Draper says.

Currently, money for the land purchases comes from revenue bonds sold by the state, grossing $300 million a year. Half goes toward the Conservation and Recreation Lands (carl) plan, and another 30 percent bankrolls the Save Our Rivers program. The rest goes for parks and forestry.

Working with local agencies, water districts and private philanthropists, P2000 has helped secure vital tracts along the Steinhatchee River, the Green Swamp Basin in Pasco County, and the Corkscrew Swamp. By contributing money for cleanup projects, P2000 played a role in settling the big federal lawsuit over agricultural pollution of the Everglades.

A list of areas targeted for future purchase stretches from the hammocks of North Key Largo to the pinelands of the Big Bend. Several counties have launched their own acquisition programs with bond issues approved by the public. The votes left no doubt that most Floridians will pay to protect threatened green space.

The best part of P2000 is that its bite is barely felt by taxpayersat least for now. Unfortunately, lawmakers approved a 10-year spending project without a 10-year funding plan.

Consequently, in this season’s budgetary panic, Preservation 2000 could be jeopardizedand with it, hundreds of thousands of acres of irreplaceable wilderness.

With any bond project, someone’s got to pay the annual debtabout $26 million on each issue of P2000 bonds. In 1990, lawmakers got the money by raising documentary stamp taxes on liens and stocks. This year the debt service will be covered by a small hike in documentary stamps on real estate.

But what about next year? And the year after that? Each new P2000 bond carries a debt that the state must pay. For this reason, Gov. Chiles and some legislators are uneasy about issuing new bonds; rather, they want P2000 to have a dedicated source of funding.

Given the fiscal crisis in schools and prisons, it’s unlikely lawmakers will simply appropriate $300 million for land acquisition. The money must come from a fresh well.

Some say bonds are still a good deal because interest rates are low, and raw land will never be cheaper. Whatever course is taken, any snag in the P2000 program would be bad news for conservation. Every lost day is costly, as illustrated by recent events near Apalachicola.

There the state had its eye on a vast stretch of swamp and pine groves called Tate’s Hell. At 183,000 acres, it would have been the largest parcel ever saved from bulldozers.

But a developer with $22 million got there first. Last month the deal was signed, and soon Tate’s Hell will have houses, “plantations” and a logging operation.

At least they won’t have to change the name.

Proposal gives green power to the people

March 14, 1993

The days of carving up public parks for private profit might soon be over.

An amendment that appears on Tuesday’s ballot would give more control of Dade’s rich park system to those who own itthe people.

If the measure passes, no large commercial ventures could be launched in county parks without voter approval. That includes race-car tracks, pro tennis stadiums, flea markets and other extravaganzas that have been allowed to occupy public lands.

The premise of the charter amendment is that parks are meant to be preserved, not exploited. It’s a concept that worries a few local bureaucrats, who look at Dade’s shrinking green spaces and see not just trees, but money.

Piecing out park projects is a high-stakes deal; contracts and concessions often go to those with strong political connections. Letting the public get involved throws a wrench into the works. That’s why Metro commissioners refused to put the Save Our Parks proposal on a ballot.

Supporters quickly collected almost 94,000 signatures on a petition, so the amendment is now on its way to voters. Meanwhile, officials in Miami and other cities are fretting aloud over the possible consequences. Imagineallowing common citizens to decide how their parks should be used!

Politicians fear that voters might not appreciate some of their bold moneymaking schemes. Say, for example, that the city of Miami Beach wanted to build a parking garage in an oceanfront park. The uninformed masses might think poorly of the idea and vote against it, thus halting the march of progress.

Miami planners envision just such a scenario. They’re trying to turn what’s left of Bicentennial Park into a working annex of the seaport. If the Save Our Parks amendment passes, voters might block the expansion on the grounds that the cruise lines can damn well afford to buy their own docks. In anticipation, the city is hastily hunting for loopholes to allow the port landgrab to proceed, no matter what happens in the election.

The notion that parks should bring in revenue isn’t new. It makes sense to have a bait shop at Crandon Marina, or an outdoor snack bar at Matheson Hammock. The public gets a needed service, and the county gets money from leasing the concessions.

But look at large-scale boondoggles such as the Grand Prix and the Lipton tennis tournament, which have transformed Bicentennial and Crandon parks respectively. Heavily subsidized by tax dollars, both events supposedly still bleed red ink, and each year the promoters come begging for more public money.