It's Commerce Versus Coral At One Of Florida's Busiest Ports

Just as Surfrider, Captains for Clean Water, Miami Waterkeeper, and countless other organizations are (cautiously) jumping for joy over Florida’s SB302 Coastal Resiliency being signed into law, more environmental degradation is underway today in the Sunshine State’s Port Everglades.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has, for decades, been developing its “Port Everglades Harbor Navigation Improvement Project” in order to dredge way for incessant the parade of increasingly larger container ships and tankers that are struggling to enter the 42-foot-deep, 500-foot-wide Outer Entrance Channel.

Advocates for the widening of the channel to a 55-foot depth and an 800-foot width say that “cargo and petroleum ships are unable to enter the port fully loaded due to restricted water depth,” and “Cargo ships get stuck waiting for hours for cruise ships to leave the port and larger oil tankers can only enter the port at high tide, creating inefficient processes that increase the carbon footprint of the ships,” writes the no-punches-pulled Florida watchdog and nonprofit organization Florida Bulldog.

It’s always a double-edged sword between commerce and conservation. Burn more bunker oil, or suffocate precious coral reef habitat—albeit the only bit of its kind in the continental U.S. But all the same, oppositionists point to the recent environmental tragedy that is, at large, PortMiami, which saw a similar dredging project by USACE.

The result of the PortMiami dredging project, which took place between 2013 and 2015, was and remains catastrophic: “They didn’t plan for impacts to the area’s reefs from the sediment plumes that were kicked up and ended up falling on and smothering the reef for what we now know is over 270 acres around the port,” Miami Waterkeeper CEO Rachel Silverstein told Florida Bulldog.

What’s an environmentally-concerned Floridian to do? According to Florida Bulldog, the estimated cost of the project currently sits ar around $1.35 billion, with about half of that slated for environmental mitigation activities. But the project is a self-funded enterprise of Broward County, and as such, won’t be appropriating local property taxes, giving locals little say, and possibly circumventing the new Coastal Resiliency law.

It’s hazy politics, indeed. When reached for comment by Florida Bulldog, public affairs officers for USACE and the Department of Justice “declined to comment on behalf of the Jacksonville District regarding the Port Everglades project’s goals and environmental safeguards.”

“We have one shot to get this right,” reads a statement from Port Everglades. “and we agree that the added science-based environmental considerations and mitigation activities will ensure that our unique natural environment and wildlife are protected during construction so they can continue to thrive.”

Silverstein, Miami Waterkeeper’s CEO, isn’t all too confident, especially in the wake of major mismanagement (and falsified evidence) on behalf of USACE, with unsettling findings published by NOAA in 2023.

“From what we’ve seen so far, [USACE] is being more honest, although we still don’t think that they’ve done all of the modeling and scientific actions correctly,” Silverstein said.

But as things stand, “millions of corals are expected to be impacted by the Port Everglades dredge project,” Florida Bulldog writes.

It may or may not impact a surf break near you, but it will surely hit the smattering of patch reef that makes up the already (undeniably) fickle breaks along Fort Lauderdale’s shores.

But it’s safe to say that for the residents, businesses, and mariners in and around Fort Lauderdale, things will change.