Before that can happen, somebody will have to get a hose and put out the fire.

Everyone agrees that Munisport should be cleaned up immediately. The questions are: Who pays for it—and who decides when it's really safe.

Maybe some day it will be a golf course, just like they promised 20 years ago. They can always sell gas masks in the pro shop.

Key plan shows just how low developers go

February 13, 1991

The battle to save Soldier Key isn't finished.

Faced with a rejection by the National Park Service, developers seeking to convert the tiny islet into a pseudo-tropical tourist trap are appealing their case to Washington.

The group includes the folks at Blockbuster Entertainment, who have attached the company's name, logo and slogan ("Wow! What a Difference") to this abominable scheme for exploiting the island.

Though privately held, Soldier Key is located in the protected waters of Biscayne National Park, a few miles south of Cape Florida. The government has tried to purchase the island before, but the owners have always held out for more money. Last year they turned down Uncle Sam's offer of $135,000 and instead sold the option to a Fort Lauderdale-based tour operator, Florida Princess Cruise Line. Initially, the project called for shore-to-shore cabanas, ersatz beaches and a gift shop to sell the sort of tasteful merchandise that heatstroked, booze-addled tourists seem to favor. In the face of a decidedly unenthusiastic response, the developers slightly scaled down their plans for a Soldier Key resort, though it would still be a blight on the bay.

Forget pelicans, porpoises and sea breeze; think cocktail bars, steel drums and limbo madness.

Park superintendent James Sanders has officially notified the promoter that he opposes the day-cruise project for several reasons. A rare sea turtle, the hawksbill, successfully nested on Soldier Key last year for the first time since 1981 .The presence of five hundred carousing beachcombers might discourage future visits from the shy, endangered animals.

Beyond the turtle problem is the impact of cruise parties upon the whole park, one of the most ecologically sensitive marine preserves in the country. Soldier Key is the first link in a delicate necklace of small islands that the National Park Service has been acquiring for preservation. Tom Brown, the park system's associate regional director for planning, says that Soldier Key should be "maintained in its natural condition."

Which doesn't include the concrete swimming pool now planned for construction. Opponents, including Everglades Earth First!, plan a protest regatta to the island Feb. 23.

Recently the government substantially hiked its cash offer for Soldier Key, but the option holders didn't accept. Through congressional channels, they are quietly trying to persuade high officials in Washington, including Secretary of Interior Manuel Lujan, to overrule the park service and allow the island to be developed.

Such a reversal would be unusual, but not unprecedented. Blockbuster Entertainment chairman Wayne Huizenga is a wealthy Republican campaign contributor whose phone calls would probably be swiftly returned, were he to express a personal interest in getting the Soldier Key project approved.

Three and one-half acres isn't much to work with, but promoter Robert F. Lambert hopes to make the most of it. An optimistic brochure for Blockbuster Cruises invites travelers to "our private island in the Bay" for a day of sailing, sunning, swimming, snorkeling and "live calypso music."

Finally! Something to drown out the cries of those pesky seagulls.

The nighttime excursion sounds even more enchanting. I quote from the brochure: "Sailing south through the Biscayne Bay, witness a beautiful sunset as the moon rises over Miami."

That will be a neat trick, getting the moon to come up in the west. We can hardly wait. But there's even more tropical excitement after our ship drops anchor off Soldier Key: "Ashore, guests will be treated to a sumptuous Island luau under the skies and a live native review. Dance to the sounds of our steel drums or see 'how low you can go' in our limbo contest."

How low, indeed. Take a perfectly lovely island and turn it into the Tiki Bar from Hell.

All things considered, we'd rather stay home and rent a movie.

Pipeline crisis could turn Bay into cesspool

June 13, 1993

Think what would happen if your toilet somehow started flushing into your swimming pool. Bubble, bubble, bubble—until the pool was up to the brim: 15,000 gallons of you-know-what.

Now picture 6,000 swimming pools full of the rancid stuff, and imagine that much—90 million gallons—pouring into Biscayne Bay every single day.

That's what will happen if the old sewer pipe running underwater from mainland Miami to Virginia Key breaks. The bay will turn from blue to brown, and we're not talking pastels.

Fearing a Chernobyl-under-the-palms, the Environmental Protection Agency has sued to force Dade to rebuild its disintegrating sewers as soon as possible. Local and state agencies belatedly began brainstorming the crisis a few months ago, but the feds aren't waiting. The situation is that dire.

Two good things might come from the lawsuit. First, a new cross-bay pipeline could be built in time to avoid the catastrophe that would result from the old pipe fracturing.

Second, prosecutors could block most new construction while the sewer system is being rebuilt. Theoretically, more hookups wouldn't be permitted until more capacity is added. At least for a while, growth in Dade might slow to a healthier trickle.

A few no-growth years is the best thing that could happen here. Breathing room is what people need, especially the thousands still struggling to rebuild after Andrew.

Reckless, runaway expansion is what caused the system to fail in the first place. Faithful to the developers who bankroll their campaigns, past county commissioners approved one subdivision after another—tens of thousands of new toilets—even as sewers began to burst, literally.

Thanks to a few corrupted bums, we're now facing a septic eruption that will do for Miami's tourism what Exxon did for bird watching in Alaska.

Disaster could strike any time. The 72-inch pipe across Biscayne Bay is aged and perilously overloaded. Hydrogen sulfide gas (an aromatic product of human waste) is aggressively eating the metal from the inside out.

Much of Dade's waste is treated at Virginia Key so it travels silent and deadly across the bay. In 1992, the grand jury said the Biscayne sewer line was "a time bomb."

For years, the county environmental office has badgered the Water and Sewer Department to start work on a larger pipeline. And, for years, the Water and Sewer people have pondered and hypothesized and written reports on the problem.

Meanwhile, the building frenzy continued. The sewers got more full, and the pipes got more fragile. The most recent failure occurred at Easter, tainting the water from the Julia Tuttle Causeway to the Rickenbacker. And that was a relatively piddling leak, only 20 million gallons.

When the mother lode ruptures, forget about diving, sailing or swimming. Forget about the fish and the manatees. Biscayne Bay will look, and smell, like an immense tropical cesspool.

Fact: Fecal contamination is very bad for tourism. Fact: A moratorium on sewer hookups will be costly to powerful builders.

For one or both of those reasons, a new sewer line will be built across the bay. Pray that the old one holds out until the new one is finished. In the meantime, enjoy the lull.

Because when the new pipe is done, developers will stampede the county seeking thousands and thousands of new sewer hookups. And the commissioners will say … yes, yes, yes!