BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported having to open two flood gates to deal with flooding on Thursday in the Florida Everglades.
Engineers also opened two additional flood gates Thursday afternoon due to tree islands being underwater — yet again.
“We had rain all night and into the morning and our tree islands are underwater again,” said Betty Osceola, of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. “I actually have some sunken airboats this morning because the pumps got overwhelmed.”
As Osceola navigated by canoe past flooded airboats in an area already struggling with high water levels, a flood gate operator waited a few miles west for the call before opening it.
“You can see that all these roots have started coming up on the water’s surface, said Osceola. “The tree islands of the Everglades are like the lifeblood of the Everglades.”
Last month, tribal biologists said that the Everglades is drowning.
The South Florida Water Management District and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission have penned letters to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers requesting they open specific water control structures along the Tamiami Trail to provide relief and restore healthy wildlife populations.
Osceola, along with Miccosukee Fish and Wildlife Director Dr. Craig van der Heiden; and Garrett Stuart, Chief Executive Officer at the Eco Preservation Project, gave Local 10 News viewers an inside look last month at the rising water level in the Central Everglades to discuss the growing problem.
“These islands are what the animals depend on,” Stuart said in October.
“You can see all these roots are coming up on the water’s surface,” said van der Heiden. “This means the wildlife that utilizes these islands will start to decline.”
Tribal biologists and animal advocates have now shown the risk to wildlife and the Central Everglades ecosystem, asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open specific water control structures along Tamiami Trail to provide habitat relief without flooding Miami-Dade’s agricultural lands.
“They started the process to get the gates open and they still haven’t finalized that process,” said Osceola. “They said we would know by December if we were able to open the gates because they had to first open it up to public comment and other agencies.”
Nearly one month later, the area was hit with upwards of six inches of rain in the past 48 hours, bringing urgency to Osceola’s ongoing call to action to open the gates.
“These gates are located further west, so if they were to open S12A and S12B which is along the Tamiami Trail and also the S343A and S343B, those gates would not flood the agricultural areas, it would actually move more water out of the system towards southwestern portion of Everglades National Park and eventually makes its way to Florida bay all the way down to the Key, in its natural flow path,” she said.
Read the Army engineers’ statement: