Deep dredge arouses "deep concerns" at Port of Miami
The Miami Herald reports that port administrators and regulators insist they can open Miami to bigger ships without the same murky mistakes of past projects, but environmentalists remain concerned about damaging ripple effects on fish, reefs and seagrass.
Dredgers have deepened sections of the Port of Miami twice in the last dozen years. Both times, the digging went awry, claimed Miami Herald.
In 2005, a hydraulic cutting rig and leaky scow hauling rock to an offshore dump site combined to produce plumes of milky silt wafting across seagrass beds and coral reefs. In 1999, a contractor illegally gouged three acres of lush seagrass from an adjacent state aquatic preserve that is prime manatee habitat.
Now the port is on the cusp of final state and federal approval for the last - and by far largest - chunk of an ambitious, long-controversial dredging plan.
The goal is to lure a new class of mega-sized cargo ships designed to take advantage of a Panama Canal overhaul due to be completed in 2014.
Port Director Bill Johnson calls “Deep Dredge” perhaps the most significant project in the seaport’s history, a “game changer” he believes can double its primary container shipping business and spawn some 30,000 more jobs across the region by the end of the decade.
Those rosy projections prompted Florida Gov Rick Scott to take the unusual step of fronting the federal half of the US$150 million project to kick-start the stalled plan - with no guarantee Congress will ever pay the state back. Miami-Dade County and the Florida Department of Transportation will split the remaining US$75 million tab.
However, as the Miami Herald also reports, environmentalists and critics like Dan Kipnis, a long-time Miami fishing captain and conservation activist, fear a dredging mess déjà vu – but wider and more damaging than previous projects.
“It’s going to be another boondoggle,’’ said Kipnis, who scoffs at the big-dollar promises and argues that the environmental effects will outweigh any economic payoff. “I’m really afraid we’re going to be changing Biscayne Bay forever.’’
Kipnis, echoing a letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from the Tropical Audubon Society, Sierra Club and nine other environmental groups, ticked off a long list of potential impacts from more than two years of dredging and up to 600 days of underwater blasting.
He warns of snook, tarpon and sea turtles belly-up from underwater blasting; streams of silt and sediment smothering reefs and seagrass beds; tourists and fisherman grousing over murky water and declining catches.
Port managers, as well as state and federal agencies overseeing the project, acknowledge there will be impacts but insist they’ll mostly be short-lived from work scheduled to start next summer, barring any unexpected delays or lawsuits.
Regulators say they can minimize effects by closely monitoring turbidity and temporarily shutting down dredging buckets or cutters to prevent dense, damaging plumes. They plan to offset direct destruction of about five acres of patch reefs and eight acres of seagrass by creating new and bigger artificial reefs nearby and restoring damaged beds elsewhere in the bay.
“We have learned from our past mistakes,’’ said assistant port director Dorian Valdes. “”We’re definitely going to place more attention on environmental impacts as we move toward the future.’’
Florida DEP water resources director Mark Thomasson called some concerns raised by environmental groups “valid” and gave them one victory last week in a “notice of intent’’ to issue a permit for the job to the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The Corps and port agreed to take oft-used and abused Virginia Key off the table as a back-up dumpsite for fill - though the island could still wind up with rubble from the US$1 billion port tunnel project.
Dredgers have deepened sections of the Port of Miami twice in the last dozen years. Both times, the digging went awry, claimed Miami Herald.
In 2005, a hydraulic cutting rig and leaky scow hauling rock to an offshore dump site combined to produce plumes of milky silt wafting across seagrass beds and coral reefs. In 1999, a contractor illegally gouged three acres of lush seagrass from an adjacent state aquatic preserve that is prime manatee habitat.
Now the port is on the cusp of final state and federal approval for the last - and by far largest - chunk of an ambitious, long-controversial dredging plan.
The goal is to lure a new class of mega-sized cargo ships designed to take advantage of a Panama Canal overhaul due to be completed in 2014.
Port Director Bill Johnson calls “Deep Dredge” perhaps the most significant project in the seaport’s history, a “game changer” he believes can double its primary container shipping business and spawn some 30,000 more jobs across the region by the end of the decade.
Those rosy projections prompted Florida Gov Rick Scott to take the unusual step of fronting the federal half of the US$150 million project to kick-start the stalled plan - with no guarantee Congress will ever pay the state back. Miami-Dade County and the Florida Department of Transportation will split the remaining US$75 million tab.
However, as the Miami Herald also reports, environmentalists and critics like Dan Kipnis, a long-time Miami fishing captain and conservation activist, fear a dredging mess déjà vu – but wider and more damaging than previous projects.
“It’s going to be another boondoggle,’’ said Kipnis, who scoffs at the big-dollar promises and argues that the environmental effects will outweigh any economic payoff. “I’m really afraid we’re going to be changing Biscayne Bay forever.’’
Kipnis, echoing a letter to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection from the Tropical Audubon Society, Sierra Club and nine other environmental groups, ticked off a long list of potential impacts from more than two years of dredging and up to 600 days of underwater blasting.
He warns of snook, tarpon and sea turtles belly-up from underwater blasting; streams of silt and sediment smothering reefs and seagrass beds; tourists and fisherman grousing over murky water and declining catches.
Port managers, as well as state and federal agencies overseeing the project, acknowledge there will be impacts but insist they’ll mostly be short-lived from work scheduled to start next summer, barring any unexpected delays or lawsuits.
Regulators say they can minimize effects by closely monitoring turbidity and temporarily shutting down dredging buckets or cutters to prevent dense, damaging plumes. They plan to offset direct destruction of about five acres of patch reefs and eight acres of seagrass by creating new and bigger artificial reefs nearby and restoring damaged beds elsewhere in the bay.
“We have learned from our past mistakes,’’ said assistant port director Dorian Valdes. “”We’re definitely going to place more attention on environmental impacts as we move toward the future.’’
Florida DEP water resources director Mark Thomasson called some concerns raised by environmental groups “valid” and gave them one victory last week in a “notice of intent’’ to issue a permit for the job to the US Army Corps of Engineers.
The Corps and port agreed to take oft-used and abused Virginia Key off the table as a back-up dumpsite for fill - though the island could still wind up with rubble from the US$1 billion port tunnel project.