As the end of his tenure draws near, Ron DeSantis risks poisoning his Everglades legacy

Florida in Five: Five stories to read from the past week in Florida politics.

Photo credit: Francesca Ho on Unsplash

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Welcome to another installment of Florida in Five: Five* stories you need to read from the past week in Florida politics.

The most important moment of Florida’s 2018 governor’s race came when Donald Trump endorsed Ron DeSantis during the primary election. The U.S. president and MAGA movement leader essentially carried DeSantis, then a little-known Congressman from northeast Florida, past a Big Sugar-backed Republican rival who began the campaign much better known and far better funded.

But the second-most important moment may have been when the Everglades Trust — one of the guardians of Florida’s famed River of Grass — decided to side with DeSantis in the closing weeks of the general election campaign.

The shock endorsement over DeSantis’ Democratic opponent — in which the leader of the Everglades group labeled DeSantis a “hero” who would stand up to the sugar industry — helped DeSantis morph from Donald Trump toady in the primary to “Teddy Roosevelt Republican” in the general, where he ultimately eked out a victory by fewer than 40,000 votes.

It’s a part of his political identity that DeSantis has worked hard to preserve over the years, even as Florida’s Republican governor has otherwise curdled into an acidic culture warrior. A guy who now paints rainbows black and demands an end to vaccine rules for school kids also still proudly touts his record on Everglades restoration and the nearly $8 billion his administration has invested in reviving the iconic swamp.

But DeSantis is now polluting even that piece of his legacy.

The most obvious example is the infamous immigrant detention camp that the DeSantis administration built this summer alongside a remote airstrip deep within the Everglades.

DeSantis has repeatedly insisted that the detention facility — which the governor and other Republican politicians gleefully nicknamed “Alligator Alcatraz” — is having minimal impact on the surrounding land.

But a federal lawsuit brought by environmental groups revealed evidence of enormous ecological impact — including nearly 20 acres of new pavement, industrial lighting so bright it can be seen at least 20 miles away, and daily shipments of everything from jet fuel to human waste.

“The light pollution is far worse now than before the camp’s construction,” Kathleen Williams, the federal trial court judge presiding over the lawsuit, wrote in an Aug. 21 order. “The addition of 800,000 square feet of asphalt paving (with another 1 million planed) increases harmful water runoff relative to the areas previously paved…The frenetic human activity, including vehicular traffic and wastewater from thousands of people daily, was essentially absent prior to the detention camp’s construction.”

Williams, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, found that the DeSantis and Trump administrations had violated federal law by building the Everglades facility without first conducting a required environmental review. She ordered the site shut down — though her ruling was overturned last week by a pair of Trump-appointed appellate judges.

But it’s not just that DeSantis has allowed contractors to pave over a bit of the Everglades in order to lock immigrants in cages and sell some sociopathic merch.

The governor’s administration also recently signaled its intent to approve a plan pushed by sugar industry lobbyists to open a massive rock mine in the Everglades Agricultural Area, just south of Lake Okeechobee.

The mining operation — in which crews would blast and scrape to a depth of 15 feet in order to excavate limestone that could then be sold for road construction — would cover roughly 13 square miles of former Everglades land that is now largely owned by U.S. Sugar Corp. and Florida Crystals. The two Big Sugar companies and their construction contractor are trying to sell the project, which they have dubbed “Southland,” by promising to convert the resulting pit into a water-storage reservoir.

But Southland would also be built right next door to the much larger and more complex “EAA Reservoir,” a $4 billion, 80-billion-gallon storage-and-filtration system that would restore some of the historic freshwater flow between Lake O and the southern Everglades.

A host of environmental groups have warned that mining operations at Southland could disrupt or even damage the EAA Reservoir, which many activists consider the linchpin project in the decades-long effort to revive the Everglades. But that didn’t stop DeSantis’ Department of Environmental Protection from announcing in June that it intends to approve a permit for the Southland mine.

So now environmental groups are suing to try and stop that project, too.

*To paraphrase Barbossa, five is more what you’d call a guideline than an actual rule.

Crazy train

School leaders react to Florida plan to axe vaccine mandates: ‘That’s so crazy’ (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: Facing DeSantis, Ladapo vaccine proposal, Florida lawmakers are lukewarm (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: Florida officials say they want to eliminate school vaccine mandates. It won’t be that simple. (The 19^th)

See also: Florida is ending vaccine mandates. What do Canadian travelers need to know? (CBC)

A storm is coming

Epstein victims say they will compile their own “client list,” demand accountability (Miami Herald) ($)

See also: Miami Herald, New York Times seek to unseal records on Jeffrey Epstein’s estate (Miami Herald) ($)

Florida Inc.

Dozens backed FPL’s $10B rate hike. But many get money from the utility. (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

See also: Waterlogged and contaminated: In rural Florida, locals suspect a mining company is to blame for their flooding troubles (Grist)

Locals v. DeSantis

Manatee County joins growing list of cities, counties challenging Senate Bill 180 with legal action (Fox 13 Tampa Bay)

See also: DeSantis stands behind his signing of controversial land-use law (Florida Phoenix)

A state drained of color

Florida officials paint over some of Orlando’s colorful storm drains (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

See also: As Florida targets LGBTQ+ crosswalks and street murals, advocates fight back (Watermark Out News)

See also: DeSantis Declares War on Woke Sidewalk Chalk (The Bulwark)

See also: DeSantis defends Pulse crosswalk arrests (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

Perspectives

I ran the Florida Department of Health. Dr. Ladapo is endangering our children (Tampa Bay Times) ($)

Florida is promoting dangerous policy to please anti-vaxxers (Miami Herald) ($)

Food stamps have accountability. So should school vouchers (Orlando Sentinel) ($)

How insurance pricing obscures the real cost of climate change (Moving Day)