As Alligator Alcatraz adds more pavement, environmentalists add to legal complaints
In a newly filed legal notice, environmental groups accused the government agencies of ignoring even more environmental regulations while building and opening Alligator Alcatraz, despite the governor's pledge to have 'zero impacts' on the Everglades.
The second barrage of legal documents, filed two weeks after the first lawsuit, also suggests that the detention center is already making an impact on the fragile ecosystem around it.
'With each passing day, we see visible environmental impacts on this site. We are very concerned and filed this additional legal action to ensure the law is being complied with,' said Eve Samples, head of Friends of the Everglades, one of the groups spearheading the legal challenges.
Aerial photography revealed fresh patches of asphalt, including several short stretches of roads and an 11-acre patch of new blacktop. The lawsuit accuses the state and federal government of failing to get the proper permits to 'dredge and fill' those formerly open, grassy areas.
Florida's Department of Emergency Management spokesperson Stephanie Hartman said that the 11-acre paved-over area was actually a patch of concrete with overgrown grass.
'The photographed areas all reflect previously paved or concrete portions of the airport, including where the asphalt is pictured,' she told the Herald.
A consultant for Friends of the Everglades reviewed old aerial photography dating back to the construction of the Jetport in 1970 and never found a patch of concrete in that same spot, just vegetation.
'We doubt, looking at the aerials, if it was paved before,' said Paul Schwiep, one of the lead attorneys for the environmental groups and a partner at Miami-based Coffey Burlington. 'The statement that this was all built on the existing footprint does not appear to be correct.'
The notice of intent to sue in the next 60 days also dings the state and federal government for failing to consider the potential impacts on endangered and threatened species in the area, including the Florida panther, the bonneted bat and Everglade snail kite.
The original lawsuit accused the state and federal government of ignoring federal environmental laws that require them to analyze potential harms to the environment before building.
'They don't dispute that there hasn't been any analysis of any environmental impacts — impacts on wetlands, impacts on endangered species, none of it,' said Schwiep.
READ MORE: Feds move in court to distance Trump administration from Alligator Alcatraz
Instead, in court filings, the state has argued it didn't need to do those analyses because it was acting during an immigration-related state of emergency declared by Gov. Ron DeSantis three years ago. Federal agencies said they had nothing to do with the site — declaring it a Florida-operated detention center with no support from the Trump administration, despite the many public statements of support from federal officials at the highest levels of government.
'There are so many on-the-record statements regarding this federal state partnership,' said Samples. 'Their court filings do not align with their public statements on this topic.'
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