Kick Ass: Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

by Carl Hiaasen

By contrast, Broward had 1,439,663 residents living within a much smaller area, 1,220 square miles. That works out to a nerve-jangling 1,180 persons per square mile, the human equivalent of living in a beehive.

  The true elbow-to-elbow density of both counties is actually higher, when you eliminate their vast, unpopulated Everglades acreage.

  Only one place in the state is more statistically overchoked: Pinellas County, the St. Petersburg/Clearwarer area, where more than 2,700 people are shoehorned into every square mile. If they were rats, they'd probably be gnawing each others' limbs off.

  Inevitably, growth has slowed dramatically in Pinellas, as it has in Miami-Dade—not only because these places are running out of room, but because people are running away. In large numbers, they're fleeing the woes and headaches of rapid urbanization—crime, traffic, taxes, sardine-can classrooms.

  Where are the disenchanted going? Broward, according to population experts. Then Palm Beach, Martin and St. Lucie along the east coast; Lee, Collier, Charlotte and Sarasota on the west coast.

  That's the great, bitter irony. About 800 people a day move to Florida in pursuit of a dream that's being obliterated by their own footprints. It's a dream they're destined to chase from one end of the state to the other, trying to escape all the other dreamers.

  Thousands have fled Miami-Dade for Broward, and now Broward is more densely congested than Dade. In a few years, the same thing will likely happen to Palm Beach County, and hordes will flee there in search of someplace more sane and livable.

  An advanced civilization might produce leaders who would learn from the foolhardiness of others and take steps not to inflict the same ills on their own communities.

  This doesn't happen in South Florida, where politicians customarily cave in to developers at the expense of wise long-range planning. The result is what you see, an unbroken panorama of greed.

  Palm Beach County is destined to become another Miami-Dade, just as surely as Collier is destined to become another Pinellas. Nobody has learned a damn thing, which is symptomatic of another type of density crisis.

  The density of certain skulls.

  Vanishing Florida

  The bombs of progress blast crater in nature

  August 6, 1985

  From the road you can't even see it.

  The buffer is North Key Largo hammock, dense and darkly tangled, quiet on a summer morning. The mosquitoes are exuberant, and there are also snakes, so it is best to keep walking.

  Suddenly, the pristine tamarind and mahogany end, and the sun strikes the eye harshly. Ahead the land is bare, bleached and broken, as if a giant's claw had raked away a hundred acres of forest.

  It looks like a bomb exploded here, and it did. It was called Port Bougainville.

  Three years ago the fancy advertising promised "the romance of the Mediterranean and the freedom of the Florida Keys." There would be a yacht club, beaches, lakes, a shopping plaza, a hotel, more than 2,500 condominiums, all with "the charm of a painting by Cezanne."

  Try Salvador Dali on a bad day.

  What you see now is an obscene moonscape of pits and boulders. The sales models are boarded up, the quaint unfinished plaza is a pastel ghost town. The bulldozers have been towed away, and some of the trucks and trams are up on blocks. Castor bean and other garbage weeds flourish where hardwoods once grew.

  Construction ceased on Port Bougainville more than a year ago when its financing collapsed. The work that began here was mostly done by dynamite, blowing craters in the hammock to create phony lakes upon which to sell "waterfront units."

  Touring the 406 acres now, one might guess that the controversial mega-condo has gone belly-up. The polite term is that the project is "in receivership."

  The bank foreclosed on the developer and the developer sued the bank and now there are lawyers crawling all over the place, which means we're talking about a serious, long-term mess.

  Ironic, considering the development's history—approved after months of scandalous publicity, bureaucratic hand-wringing and celebrated compromise. While environmentalists battled stridently in court, everyone else signed off on Port Bougainville—the state Department of Community Affairs, the South Florida Regional Planning Council and, of course, Monroe County's zoo of a planning department.

  The project is fine, they said. A boon for the economy, they said. Environmentally sound, they said.

  A darn big improvement, they all said.

  Now they say: Hey, we did our best. Nobody dreamed the deal would disintegrate.

  But don't think for a minute the project is dead—this is Florida, remember? This type of development is like the Frankenstein monster, a lurching clod kept on life support forever. Every so often, a new genius shows up with a new scheme for resurrection.

  Ten years ago, Port Bougainville was known as Solarelle—another developer, another failure. Years from now, after the current fiasco is sorted out, the project probably will have a new owner and a new name and a new theme. Today the Mediterranean, tomorrow Venice.

  And, as always, an elaborate public show will be made of trying to save as many trees and birds and butterflies as possible, which is not easy when you're using dynamite.

  On Sunday, a single snowy egret searched for minnows from the shore of a jagged, blasted-out creek. A ground dove pecked for berries on a disused limestone roadbed. Yellow butterflies darted above the remaining buttonwoods but veered clear of the gashed land.

  Nobody wanted Port Bougainville to turn out this way, but it did. Nobody in government had the guts to say stop.

  It's classic for South Florida. Where else would they even agree to stick one of the largest-ever condo projects between a national wildlife sanctuary and the continent's only living coral reef?

  Each officious drone who said yes to this extravaganza ought to be forced to spend a day on North Key Largo, walking the property with his own children.

  Explaining the scars, the rubble, the whole atrocious legacy.

  Pristine oasis may go to waste in trash crisis

  November 8, 1985

  As the last wild traces of South Florida disappear under the dredge and bulldozer, it's a good time to weigh the fate of the Pond Apple Slough.

  That such a place has survived the blind rapacity of Broward County's development is both a marvel and mystery. Stubbornly it thrives, a steamy oasis wedged between two of the busiest and ugliest thoroughfares ever built, State Road 84 and U.S. 441.

  Perhaps one thing that has saved the 100-acre gem is its invisibility not only from the roads, but from the South New River Canal, which forms its southern boundary.

  Hemmed in, shut off, nearly forgotten, the freshwater swamp and its adjacent cypress forest is one of the most pristine Florida habitats left on the peninsula. Beyond the drooping pond apples are royal palms, coco plums, leather ferns and sprawling ficuses, ancient giants draped with moss, wild orchids and airplants.

  Penetrable only by canoe and foot, the Pond Apple Slough is a refuge for bobcats, raccoons, squirrels and gray foxes; snakes, alligators and endangered crocodiles; hawks, ospreys, kestrels and other birds of prey. The animals have adapted remarkably well to the swamp's clamorous borders, and even to the roar of 727s passing low on approach to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport.

  But soon there will be new neighbors: Interstate 595, arcing high overhead, and a massive garbage incinerator, with two enormous landfills. The highway is an aesthetic nuisance but nonintrusive; the incinerator is something else.

  The battle has been predictably emotional, with homeowners and environmentalists on one side, county officials on the other. Beginning Tuesday at the Davie-Cooper City Library, state officials will hold nine days of hearings about the new garbage plant, and one of the main issues is its effect on the rare slough.

  The swamp itself is on state property, technically protected. But one of the landfills is planned for 200 acres of county property, now sawgrass, which borders the tall cypress. Environmentalists fear poisonous runoff from
the ash and refuse will decimate the swamp.

  George Fitzpatrick, chairman of Broward's Environmental Quality Control Board, says the landfill "will have a very negative effect … You shouldn't build incinerators with landfills in a swamp."

  Adds naturalist Woody Wilkes: "It will destroy this whole area. There's no way to get around it."

  Faced with a mountainous garbage crisis, Broward is determined to build new incinerators; it's already issued $521 million worth of bonds to finance two of them.

  Tom Henderson, director of resource recovery, says the county has spent a fortune studying the pond apple habitat and is committed to saving the slough and restoring long-lost waterways near the dumps.

  "The area's going to be much better than what's there," says Henderson.

  He also says the dump site nearest the Pond Apple Slough won't be needed until the turn of the century, if ever, and that all ash would be deposited on a thick layer of plastic to prevent leeching into the precious groundwater.

  Opponents say that's not enough. They view the incinerator as a fountain of rancid air, and they want modern emission controls on its smoke-stack. They also want its ash and rubble trucked out west; in other words, no landfills near the swamp.

  The classic problem with dumps is that nobody wants one in their own backyard. Trouble is, this just isn't any old backyard; it's one of the few remaining glimpses of Florida as it was a century ago, a gentle canoe trip into the past.

  Surely the state can settle this controversy by demanding strict, enforceable measures to save the Pond Apple Slough and the air it breathes. A dump is one kind of political legacy; a wilderness is another.

  It would be a tragedy to lose it to a 40-foot hill of burnt slop.

  Sewage charges latest outrage at ocean reef

  December 16, 1985

  The idea of dumping raw sewage into the waters of the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park is so vile that it makes the blood boil.

  This month, the wondrous park's 25th anniversary, the Ocean Reef Club in North Key Largo was indicted on 346 counts of allegedly emptying its toilets straight into the ocean over the continent's only living coral reef.

  If the charges are true, this is by far the worst in the club's long history of flagrant abuses. Of all the developments in the Florida Keys, Ocean Reef Inc. has been the most prolific violator of environmental laws. Its motto might as well be: Let's do it until we get caught.

  The place is legendary: Canals appear overnight to create instant "waterfront" lots; protected mangroves vanish in the darkness. The investigatory files on Ocean Reef stuff several drawers at the state Department of Environmental Regulation and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

  Yet sanctions against the resort have, until now, been laughably weak. The largest fine was $50,000 stretched out to five payments in five years—hardly the sort of penalty that teaches a lesson.

  Much is made of the fact that Ocean Reef is a haven for the rich and famous. Wealthy or not, the people who live there had nothing to do with the sewage scandal. In fact, their complaints helped trigger the investigation by the Environmental Protection Agency.

  "We're shocked by what happened, and we're angry," says Barrett Wendell, president of an Ocean Reef property owner's group. "The reef is too valuable an asset to be treated this way."

  "We're the victims—not the people perpetrating this," adds Charles Howell, another resident.

  Ironically, Ocean Reef homeowners had been negotiating with the developers to buy out the utilities, including the long-troubled sewage system. Last summer a tentative agreement was reached, but suddenly Ocean Reef Inc. changed its mind and decided to keep the sewer plants.

  For many homeowners, this month's pollution indictment was a bitter and shameful moment. "We felt like we were indicted, too," Howell says. Some members fired off a letter to financier Carl Lindner, the principal owner, condemning the company for such a "despicable" act.

  Says resident Clayton Kolstad: "We think it stinks."

  And stink is the word for it. According to the indictment, raw fecal matter was purposely spewed into a slender waterway known as Channel Cay. From there tidal currents swept the putrid effluent into the Atlantic and out over the endangered offshore reef.

  The dumping allegedly took place between Nov. 1, 1982, and Nov. 10, 1983, but several residents claim it actually went on much longer. Ocean Reef Inc. has declined to discuss the charges.

  Up to now, the club—whose membership is full of political heavyweights—has treated the state and Army Corps like pesky gnats.

  But the EPA is the big league, and this indictment is criminal. Ocean Reef's president, vice president and utilities director face a possible year in prison for each of the 346 counts, while the development conceivably could be hit with an $8.6 million fine.

  If the club has a lick of common sense, the case will be settled before it ever gets to trial. A fine will be paid, nobody will do a day in jail, and the company will get back to the business of squeezing every square inch of profit out of its North Key Largo holdings.

  Ocean Reef Inc. can afford a hefty fine: A couple of years ago, one undeveloped waterfront lot sold for $900,000.

  Prosecutors ought to shoot for a seven-figure settlement. Big money is the only thing that gets arrogant polluters' attention, and it's the only thing that will make them think twice before opening a "magic valve" again.

  As one furious Ocean Reef resident put it: "I don't know what kind of mind would pump raw sewage into a canal where children swam and snorkeled and boated. It's horrible."

  Margaritaville marshlands: Wasting away?

  October 27, 1986

  The most tranquil part of this crazed island is unknown even to some of the locals—407 nearly virgin acres of mangrove, mahogany and marshlands. The Salt Ponds.

  In a place where real estate is as precious as Mel Fisher's gold, it would seem a miracle that the ponds haven't already been drained, dredged, paved and plastered. Unfortunately, that sad day might be coming. A developer named Larry Marks has fought an extended court battle for the right to put up 1,100 units here, and he says he'll do it.

  In the old days, a familiar corps of tenacious environmentalists would have stood alone against the development, and probably lost. This fight is different. Opposition to the Salt Ponds project is broader, and it includes a famous voice that carries clear to Tallahassee.

  Jimmy Buffett can look out at the ponds from the porch of his home. He has explored by canoe and found egrets, herons, ospreys, even an eagle. "It's beautiful in there," the singer says.

  Buffett doesn't think this is a suitable location for a thousand condominiums or apartments. "Affordable housing," the developer calls it. "Monstrosity" is the term preferred by critics. The Key West City Commission meets Tuesday to discuss the plan. Tonight Buffett will sing at a "Save the Salt Ponds" rally at a restaurant on Duval Street.

  This is not the best of news for the developer; Buffett is a popular fellow with a huge following here. The singer already has angered Larry Marks by suggesting that one of Marks' other big condo projects should be used as a bombing target by the Navy.

  Though he usually avoids Key West politics like a tropical plague, Buffett says the Salt Ponds are too important to ignore. "We've got enough condos. I mean, how many people can live on this island?"

  The strategy to save the Salt Ponds doesn't include another prolonged legal slugfest with Larry Marks—except as a last resort. The new plan is to get the state of Florida to purchase the wetlands outright. There are many who think that Marks would be willing to sell his portion, for the right price. Both the City Commission and the Florida Audubon Society say it's a good idea, and last week the state took the first step toward placing the Salt Ponds on its list of lands to be acquired for preservation.

  The problems are time and money: It might take years before the fluids are available. In the meantime, the bulldozers could roll.

  Because the Salt Ponds are so remote—a verdant poc
ket near the airport's runway, far from the Conch Train's view—most tourists and many Key Westers have never visited the beautiful tidal marsh. Buffett says it can't be saved until people know what they're saving.

  "It's the same ploy we used with the manatees," he says. "Nobody knew what manatees were, seven years ago."

  Buffett's importance in a local controversy like this is inestimable. No other personality is so instantly identified with Key West; no one has done more to popularize the island's charms. If anyone can mobilize Margaritaville, it is he. High-rises have no place in Buffett's lyrical view of paradise.

  "If you want to make it look like Fort Lauderdale," he says, "then, hell, go live in Fort Lauderdale."

  Still, it's one thing to pick up a guitar and quite another to stalk into City Hall and make a speech. "I promised my grandfather that I would never get into politics," he says with a groan.

  With enough attention, the Salt Ponds can be saved. All it takes is money. The 407 acres are divided among more than two dozen landholders, all of whom deserve compensation. Exactly how much compensation will be a matter of some dispute.

  The crucial thing is for the city to keep the ponds just as they are until negotiations begin. Buffett, who knows the Keys too well, has a good idea: "They should have Vanna White come down and all the developers gather around the Wheel of Fortune—and we'll all play."

  If only it were that easy.

  Feds must save wetlands from development

  November 19, 1986

  The destruction of West Dade's wetlands has been momentarily slowed by a bunch of pesky federal bureaucrats who seem to think water quality is more important than new strip malls and townhouses.

  At issue is the fate of the Bird Road Everglades Basin, a dozen square miles of marsh along Krome Avenue west of Kendall.