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This canal has been polluting Biscayne Bay for decades. Project will help clean it up

After one of South Florida’s usual summer deluges, the banks of the Black Creek Canal swell, sending a torrent of gross, polluted water straight into already ailing Biscayne Bay, sometimes sparking more fish kills.

South Florida officials finally have money to help fix that. And on Tuesday, the final project in a 20-year mission to clean up the dirty water flowing from the canal officially kicked off in Cutler Bay at Black Point Marina.

At a press event for the groundbreaking, Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava said the project will help protect South Florida from saltwater pushing west, strengthen the coast against sea level rise, offer stronger storm surge and restore wetland ecosystems.

“It is the last piece of our Everglades restoration for this region,” she said.

Charlie Martinez, the representative for Miami-Dade on the South Florida Water Management District governing board, called it a “major part of the Central Everglades Restoration Project that helps Biscayne Bay, which we all know is in dire straits.”

Representatives for Miami-Dade County, the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers toss sand during a ‘ground breaking’ on the final component of the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands Project near Black Point Marina in Homestead, Florida, on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.
Representatives for Miami-Dade County, the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers toss sand during a ‘ground breaking’ on the final component of the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands Project near Black Point Marina in Homestead, Florida, on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.

The idea of the $369 million Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands project is to use stormwater pumps, narrow canals and holes cut under roads to slow down the flow of water from major canals into Biscayne Bay and divert it to flow in a thin layer across acres of mangroves instead. That type of water flow mimics the natural system before Miami was built, and experts hope it will restore the mangroves that armor the coast while cleaning the polluted water.

The final few projects, including installing some new pumps, are on track to be finished in 2025.

Eleven years ago, the pilot version of this project came online at the Deering Estate. Since then, freshwater species like pond apples and sawgrass are back. Salinity levels in the groundwater nearby have dropped dramatically. More wading birds and fish are thriving in the mangroves. And perhaps most spectacularly for the dredged and drained South Florida, a natural spring burbling fresh water has reappeared.

“We’ve seen significant improvement,” said Bahram Charkhian, site manager for the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands project for the water management district.

The Biscayne Bay Wetlands restoration project takes place in three area, one near Deering Estate, one near the mouth of Black Point Creek and one near the Homestead Air Reserve Base.
The Biscayne Bay Wetlands restoration project takes place in three area, one near Deering Estate, one near the mouth of Black Point Creek and one near the Homestead Air Reserve Base.

With the latest (and hopefully, last) infusion of cash for this project, planners hope to see similar results near Black Point Marina and at a site farther south. Collectively, this project is supposed to rehydrate 1,700 acres of wetlands and reinforce three miles of mangrove-studded shoreline, the largest such project in South Florida Water Management District history.

“We’ve never done anything on this scale we’re talking about today,” said Craig Grossenbacher, chief of the water resources coordination division at Miami-Dade County DERM.

It also lays the groundwork for the other half of the equation for restoring Biscayne Bay, an Army Corps of Engineers project known as Biscayne Bay Southeastern Everglades Ecosystem Restoration or BBSEER.

If the wetlands project is about cleaning and slowing down the rush of water into Biscayne Bay, BBSEER is about finding more water to send into the thirsty bay, which was starved of its natural flow of water when humans drained the Everglades.

“When we’re talking about bringing water south, we’re also talking about bringing water southeast,” said Irela Bagué, Miami-Dade’s chief bay officer. “Either we find the water or we make the water, but we need the water.”

Charlie Martinez, the representative for Miami-Dade on the South Florida Water Management District governing board, speaks to the crowd during a ‘ground breaking’ on the final component of the Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands Project led by the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers near Black Point Marina in Homestead, Florida, on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.

But the road to get that water into the Bay comes with speed bumps, including a decision late last year by the Miami-Dade County Commission to allow more intensive development on a piece of farmland earmarked for future BBSEER projects.

In January, the state threw a question mark into the process and asked the county to look again at its approval process, potentially setting up a new vote with a new commission.

“Biscayne Bay is our Mount Rushmore. It is our Central Park. We need to protect it,” Martinez said. “It is imperiled by an ill-fated decision made by a few Dade County commissioners last year.”

Without the key land needed for future Everglades and Biscayne Bay restoration, he said the hundreds of millions spent so far would be “an effort in futility.”

“If you’re given the opportunity to prioritize Biscayne Bay over special interests, do it,” he said. “Help us, don’t work against us.”

A boater moves down the channel on Black Creek Canal leading toward Biscayne Bay at Black Point Marina in Homestead, Florida, on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.
A boater moves down the channel on Black Creek Canal leading toward Biscayne Bay at Black Point Marina in Homestead, Florida, on Tuesday, March 21, 2023.