Proposed Corporate Development in the Florida Wetlands

As we have learned in our Introduction to Environmental Policy and Planning course at Virginia Tech, wetlands have a highly significant ecological role to play in the natural world. The unique characteristics of wetlands include their ability to store water during floods and replenish aquifers by releasing that water into the surface or ground water. Wetlands also filter the water that passes through them, and if they are not overwhelmed with it, this function can serve to remove pollutants from the water. These services are in addition to the wetlands ability to provide a unique habitat for countless plant and animal species. However, even with such inherent value, humanity has historically underappreciated these things that wetlands have to offer. Typically this is at the cost of the wetlands inevitable destruction as they become filled for agricultural development and urban expansion.

As a consequence of such destruction and development, one of the nation’s most famous wetland habitats, the Florida Everglades is now at serious risk. Due to human manipulation and destruction of wetland habitat, 50% of the original wetland habitat in Florida no longer exists. This process began roughly 200 years ago, when early settlers started to drain the wetland and transform it into agricultural land, with little or no understanding of the consequences their actions would have on future generations. These consequences were felt in the 1920s, when hurricanes and flooding caused thousands of deaths, eventually resulting in the Central and Southern Florida Water Management Project of 1948. Unfortunately, the C&SFP may have been more harm than help. It put the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in charge of some construction efforts designed to protect people from flooding, and set aside 800,000 acres in the northern everglades as for agricultural purposes, calling it the Everglades Agricultural Area. There have been several negative hydrological impacts (see “Factors Adversely Affecting Wetlands”) on Florida wetlands as a result of the C&SFP. These negative impacts include the conversion of 700,000 acres of wetlands to dry lands as a result of flood control efforts, the contamination of drinking water, and numerous negative impacts to native plant and animal life. Since these problems have only served to further degrade the treasured Florida Everglades, Environmentalists are taking a strong stand against anything that may pose further threat to this ecosystem, as evidenced by the standoff regarding the plan to construct an Everglades Corporate Park near Sunrise City that would encroach upon the protected East Coast Buffer.

Knowing what we do about the importance of wetlands, and the consequences that human interference can have, this plan needs to be stopped. If the plan were to go through it would be the first development allowed westward of the Sawgrass Expressway, which marks the border between the development of the city and the protected wetland habitat. Development on this side would likely prompt more efforts to develop on this side, eventually shortening the buffer between wetland and urban area even more. The lines have been drawn, they need to stay set. The importance of maintaining the integrity of these borders and seeking to protect what is left of the Florida wetlands and Everglades needs to be made known to the public and policymakers, before it is too late to salvage that which has damaged nearly to the point of disrepair.