Saving Special Places > Save Our Swamp >

Saving Special Places
Save Our Swamp

Why You Should Care

Wetlands, such as those that would be destroyed if the Mirasol project is approved, provide essential life-support functions, not only for wood storks and wildlife, but for all of us.

• Natural wetlands recharge and clean our fresh water;
• The threatened wetlands connect the water flowing from Corkscrew Swamp Watershed (often called the Western Everglades) into the Wiggins Pass/Cocohatchee River coastal estuary; and,
• This and other proposed development in the Slough will severely threaten the rest of these natural lands, their ecological connections, and the wildlife that depend on them.

Mirasol will cause fundamental changes to the nature of the watershed.
According to an expert hydrologist and modeling analysis, the Mirasol development would illegally raise water upstream to higher than current levels during storm events. Then during drought years, the development will overdrain preserves. Both of these circumstances will harm wetland preserves and mitigation.

Wood Stork © RJ Wiley

The Science behind the permit is fundamentally flawed.
The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)asserts that the Mirasol project would benefit wood storks, and the loss of more than 600 acres of wetlands would not harm the birds because these wetlands are invaded with exotic Melaleuca trees and have little value.

Scientists from Audubon and other agencies have found that this is simply not the case. In a letter to the Corps in March 2007, Audubon´s scientist Lauritsen wrote:

“The Service´s Biological Opinion addresses all wetland acreage from the perspective that a wetland acre’s value rests first and foremost in the proportional probability that a wood stork might feed directly on that acre. This approach ignores a fundamental component of the ecological relationship between wood storks and wetlands in South Florida involving the dynamics of prey concentration. Saying that the only wetland acreage of value to a wood stork is the segment of the wetland where it lands to feed is akin to saying that the farmland where produce is grown is superfluous so long as we maintain the conditions of our refrigerators.”

The result is a grossly inadequate assessment of these wetlands’ true functions and values and the consequent wholly insufficient mitigation for their destruction.

Mirasol poses a direct threat to the largest nesting rookery of wood storks in the nation.
The colony of wood storks at Corkscrew depends on the fish in this 600-acre wetland for food to raise their young. It is that simple. Destroy these wetlands, and you destroy a primary foraging habitat for this endangered species.

Mirasol is only the beginning.
If Mirasol is approved, it will clear the way for two more projects, Terrafina and Parklands, on adjacent properties. All three projects, if allowed to go forward, will result in the destruction of more than 1,000 acres of critical wetlands.

A healthy Corkscrew Swamp is more important to Southwest Florida than more residential golf communities.
Corkscrew Swamp is one of Florida’s true ecological treasures. But its health and biological diversity depend to a large measure on the water that flows into it and the health of the natural lands surrounding it. We simply cannot develop natural lands right up to the border of the Sanctuary and expect that it will continue to fully function as a vibrant, healthy ecosystem.