Detainees are already being held in Alligator Alcatraz, according to state officials.
That was fast. In fact, everything about the project happened quickly – in the span of less than a month. But that it seems to be a done deal hasn’t daunted a group of nonprofits intent on stopping it.
June 27, Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit to shut the place down. Agencies rushed the project forward without required environmental review or citizen impact, they said, citing harm to the protected lands and species surrounding the facility, which will cost some $450 million a year to run. The plaintiffs also filed an emergency request for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.
This isn’t the first time a battle’s been fought over this place. A massive jetport was stopped in the same spot more than 50 years ago; advocates are hoping it’ll be the second win.
“Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, who helped crusade for the creation of Everglades National Park in 1947, who wrote the book ‘River of Grass,’ the same year in 1969, created Friends of the Everglades when she was 79 years old to fight what would’ve been the world’s largest airport from being built on this very site,” said Friends of the Everglades Executive Director Eve Samples.
One business day later, attorneys for the Florida argued in a 22-page response that a judge should reject their suit.
The following morning, July 1, a star-studded cadre including President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Naples Congressman Byron Donalds and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem got the grand tour. Tents were up, electricity on, and bathrooms ready. There were plenty of handshakes, congratulations and speeches, including one in which DeSantis said those opposing the facility were pro-immigrant agitators.
Governor Ron DeSantis: ‘There’s zero land being disturbed’
Trump, who said the camp would only enhance the Everglades, called the location “a brilliant choice and I think almost anybody in his or her right mind would say this is a brilliant choice, I give the governor a lot of credit for using this piece of land,” he said. “It’s on top of something that’s already developed.”
DeSantis said wastewater would be trucked out, and that seepage barriers are in place. “You are literally doing it on concrete that’s already here,” he said. “There’s zero land being disturbed.”
The governor’s conclusion? The people criticizing it are not doing it in good faith. “People just don’t want to see illegals deported.”
That afternoon, the groups took on those claims in a conference explaining their arguments and outlining the damage Alligator Alcatraz could do, not the least of which would be to ignore established environmental rules, said the nonprofits’ attorney Paul Schwiep.
‘The contempt this administration has for … environmental law’
“I heard the president say that this project building a 5,000 person detention facility in the heart of Big Cypress National Preserve will only enhance the area,” said Schwiep. “And that just demonstrates the contempt this administration has for complying with environmental law,” he said. “It’s their haste to enforce immigration law that has caused them to completely thumb their nose and treat with contempt environmental statutes.”
In the River of Grass, especially, people ought to know better, argued Alisa Coe, with Earthjustice. “If we have learned one thing from this effort, from all of the years, from all of the money, from all of the work, it is this: the importance of understanding the impacts of our actions on the Everglades before we undertake a project,” she said. “Instead, this project has been rushed through with zero analysis of the impacts.”
The largest mangrove ecosystem in the Western Hemisphere, the Everglades shelters the largest continuous stand of sawgrass prairie and the most significant breeding ground for wading birds in North America, the nonprofits point out; in 2010 it was designated as an endangered UNESCO World Heritage site.
The iconic Florida panther, already at-risk throughout its range, would be threatened as well, said the Center for Biological Diversity’s Elise Bennett.
“Because some panthers have radio collars, we know they have used the site … walk across it and all around it. And we know that Big Cypress is one of the last places that we can count on to protect our Florida panthers as private lands … are slowly eaten away by development for commercial and residential uses.”
Worse still, she said, is the increase in traffic the camp will create, since vehicle strikes are the big cats’ No. 1 cause of death.
“We are seeing trucks coming in and out of the site (and) we know there are plans to haul waste on and off the site every day,” she said. “We already lose 20 to 30 of those each year to car crashes and to lose any more is simply untenable and would prevent the survival and recovery of the species.”
Everglades Alcatraz opponents: ‘We’re not going to stop’
But the human species figures into the groups’ calculations as well.
Samples points out the Everglades region, which draws tourists from around the globe, is an immense economic engine for the state.
And there’s something deeper, Coe says, which unites Floridians of all stripes. As a born and raised Floridian, as I know many people are who live here, the Everglades are part of our identity,” she said. “And I think we see an attack on the Everglades as an attack on ourselves.
“That’s part of why we’ve brought this case – to vindicate the public’s interest in this in critically important place. And we’re not going to stop until we’ve done everything we possibly can to protect this world renowned wetland and all of the endangered species who live there.”
Alligator Alcatraz timeline
This article originally appeared on Marco Eagle: Nonprofits fight back: ‘Everglades Alcatraz’ rose without a review or citizen input.
Reporting by Amy Bennett Williams, Naples Daily News / Marco Eagle
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
