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2000

Port of Miami Violations
Editorial by Nancy Lee

Recently, a massive coastal dredge and fill violation in Dade County, attributed to the Port of Miami, was discovered by the Department of Environmental Resource Management (DERM).  It is still under investigation by DERM and the DEP.  It is possible that  the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers are also looking into it.

The Port distributed a master plan in January of this year which said that Virginia Key and surrounding bay bottoms, are very sensitive and that they intend to be cautious in protecting the Bay in that area. However, in that area it is alleged that more than 5 acres of bay bottom was illegally dredged. The damage was done starting in 1995 and continuing until 1997.

The DEP  has a 1997 permit application submitted by the Port to do the Central Turning Basin Widener, but apparently Dutra, the dredge company hired by the port, went out and excavated the area a year or two before the DEP received this application! The field survey for the DEP application was obviously false since the damage was there when the survey was conducted.

It appears that for 10 or 15 days,  Dutra  was dredging past the boundaries into  water which was  2 to 5 feet deep, destroying more than 5 acres of sea grass. A State staff member said an employee at the port actually brought it up to his superiors. He pointed out that there appeared to be too much dredge material.
The Engineer of Record on port  paperwork, Bermello, Ajamil & Partners, Inc., denies being the Engineer of Record during the incident. The Engineer should have been overseeing the dredge company.  However, there are no written records verifying the Engineering firm was no longer the Engineer of Record, overseeing the dredging. Dutra has since filed for bankruptcy. Dutra's surety company is in litigation with the Port according to a DEP staff member.

To compound the problem, the Army Corps was doing some research on the ocean floor and found numerous piles of  dredge debris dumped illegally on the way out to a permitted, legal,  offshore ocean site.  DERM has gotten a submersible and is trying to trace the illegally dumped debris to its source, thinking it might be part of the illegal dredge.

Derm is also waiting to hear from the port on their mitigation plan.The problem with putting together a mitigation plan on this: no one site is big enough to mitigate for the amount of damage, they would need  at least two or more sites.  The water was  2 to 5 feet deep  where the  sea grass  was destroyed, now the area is 30 feet deep - unsuitable for sea grass.

Besides the mitigation plan, DERM wants the original area at least partially restored.  They want the port to put boulders down for fish habitat where the damage was done.
The waters to the  South of the port (where this damage was done), is  extraordinary in statewide significance for plant and wildlife (manatees, fish, sea grass, etc.).

- Nancy Lee

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