PEMBROKE PARK, Fla. – As 2023 comes to a close, Local 10 News is taking a look back at the top five stories in our ongoing “Don’t Trash Our Treasure” initiative from this year.
Our ongoing mission with the franchise is to enlighten, educate and engage more of you to care and make a difference for our planet.
#5: County withdraws plans for Zoo Miami water park
We ended the year with a big win for the environment.
Miami-Dade county commissioners voted in December to kill a lease extension for Miami Wilds, a proposed water park on a Zoo Miami parking lot, right next to environmentally-sensitive pine rocklands.
It’s home to several endangered species, including the Florida bonneted bat.
“This horse is dead,” Miami-Dade County Commission Chairman Oliver Gilbert said after the vote.
Zoo Miami’s Ron Magill led the charge to keep the park out, not in his official role, but as a private citizen.
“It could be the first time in my memory that the BCC has in prioritized the environment over development,” he said amid the debate over the project.
Magill joined other conservationists in fighting developers and warning of irreparable damage, should the water park be built there.
“Water parks are fun, it just doesn’t need to be in the middle of this critically important habitat,” Mylea Bayless, with Bat Conservation International, said.
The water park idea is dead for now.
#4: Plans thwarted to protect critical Biscayne Bay nesting habitat
Miami city commissioners passed a resolution that was supposed to protect the marine birds of Mangrove Island in November.
But that excitement quickly faded, after it was realized that the resolution was stripped of important language surrounding boating restrictions.
The island is located near Morningside Park.
“A lot of the birds (there) have been killed and I’ve been getting photographs and it’s because there’s a lot of action here especially during the weekends,” then-District 2 City Commissioner Sabina Covo said in November.
The resolution was supposed to ban motorized boating more than 500 feet from the island.
“What was passed was completely different,” Laura Reynolds, the vice president of Friends of Biscayne Bay, said. “It did not establish any restrictions to boating whatsoever. Exactly what the birds needed, they took out of the item.”
Eco-activists allege the city was influenced by the Florida Inland Navigation District, which opposed the restrictions and threatened to withhold $4.3 million in Morningside Park improvement funds if the resolution passed.
Conservationists vow this fight is not over.
#3: Treasure trashed on Miami’s Willis Island leads to proposed legislation
There was anger and outrage in August after Only in Dade posted a video to its Instagram of what tiny Willis Island looked like after a day of people recreating there, in the heart of Biscayne Bay.
The small island is located near Virginia Key.
“It’s just disgusting to see that kind of behavior,” Miami-Dade’s Chief Bay Officer, Irela Bague, said after the video went viral.
We’ve been reporting on this growing problem for the past two years. People leave tons of trash on these islands, without bothering to pack it up and take it back to the mainland.
State lawmakers are stepping up to address it, floating new legislation to require that boaters take an education course, or even restrict boater access to the islands.
“The bad actors should be held accountable,” State Sen. Ileana Garcia, R-Miami, said.
Bague said that “no anchoring zones, for example, just passive recreation in and out of these islands, may work.”
#2: One of South Florida’s wettest years on record
The past year is going down in the record books as one of the wettest for South Florida.
Fort Lauderdale received a historic 109 inches of rain after historic flooding in April.
“We were powerless to stop it from flooding in at both doors,” a resident of the city’s Edgewood neighborhood said following the flood.
Miami is also experiencing a significant amount of rain, underscoring a persistent problem in Little Havana, where tons of street litter consistently clogs storm drains, causing flooding and frustrating residents, who say the city isn’t urgently addressing the problem.
“Even when we don’t have biblical storms, just a little rain, it floods,” Raissa Fernandez, a member of Healthy Little Havana, said in June.
When we spoke to city officials, they promised that maintenance is being stepped up. However, so far, residents say the problem persists.
“It breaks my heart to see this.” community activist Marvin Tapia said. “We need help.”
#1: Sweltering summer devastates South Florida’s coral reefs
This year became the hottest ever recorded on Earth and the sweltering summer devastated South Florida’s fragile coral reefs.
Scientists sounded the alarm as ocean temperatures reached bathtub-hot levels, especially in the Florida Keys and the Dry Tortugas.
“If this doesn’t wake people up, I don’t know what will,” Ian Enochs, who leads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s coral program, said in August.
Though cooler waters in the fall helped some corals bounce back, University of Miami Professor Andrew Baker said there was also mass mortality.
“Many of the corals that bleached in July and August have now died,” Baker, who works at UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science, said. “Especially a lot of the staghorn and elkhorn corals, there’s a few survivors left.”
Scientists say it’s still too early to tell what the long-term impact will be, but one thing is certain: the planet’s corals are doomed unless the global community urgently addresses the climate crisis.
“No matter how resilient we make our reefs, unless we get the root cause behind this, which is climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, pollution...unless we get those under control, coral reefs don’t have a chance,” Baker said.
Visit the “Don’t Trash Our Treasure” page to view all of our stories and read about important environmental resources.