The age-old Florida question of how to balance economic development with environmental conservation is playing out once again, this time at Port Everglades.
A massive dredging project to make room for the biggest cargo ships is temporarily on hold. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has withdrawn its state permit application. Environmental groups are cheering the pause because the project threatens the coral reef tract near the port, which contains some rare species.
“One of the last places where there are still somewhat healthy populations of these staghorn corals is the area right around Port Everglades,” explained Dr. Rachel Silverstein, CEO of Miami Waterkeeper.
The reefs near the entrance to the port are directly in the path of the effort to make the shipping channel deeper. In recent years, elkhorn and staghorn corals have seen such massive declines that they’ve been declared functionally extinct in Florida.
“So we’re talking about the last few remaining colonies of these species of corals that used to be the dominant species across Florida,” Silverstein said.
A coalition of environmental groups has been fighting against the project, and they think there’s significance in the Army Corps decision to hit the pause button on deepening the port.
“We hope that they are gonna come back and call the project off or rethink it with significantly less impact to the marine environment in the area,” Silverstein said.
Officials at Port Everglades, however, say the pause is just a technicality in the permitting process. They sent us a statement saying the dredging project is absolutely necessary to remain competitive with other ports.
Older, smaller cargo fleets are being replaced by bigger, more fuel-efficient ships, and to access the harbor right now, they must be lightly loaded, and they have to wait until high tide to float in and out. That causes logistical, safety, and economic issues.
When the Army Corps dredged the Port of Miami a few years ago, the reef there was badly damaged. Silverstein says she’s worried about history repeating itself in Fort Lauderdale.
“Take care of our reef, and we care about it and don’t dredge on me,” said Silverstein, repeating the mantra opponents of the project have come up with.
A Port Everglades spokesperson told me they fully expect the dredging project to move forward, and as part of it, there will be a massive coral restoration program to mitigate the damage they acknowledge will be caused by the dredging.
However, coral experts say there’s no way to guarantee those efforts will work, especially when it comes to replacing a thriving staghorn colony.