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Special Feature

DEFENDING OUR WATERWAYS

Resilience Matters

Mangrove Reef Wall panel attachments to private home in Fort Pierce

WHAT’S NEXT?

ort Lauderdale’s waterways and beaches are priceless surged from 38 to 144 times higher than levels the EPA deems
to our local community. The boat show alone brings safe for swimming.
Fin over $1 billion to the local economy. Tourists and We all remember the over 200 million gallons of toxic
local residents enjoy swimming at our beautiful beaches, waste that spilled into our streets, rivers and canals back
paddleboarding and kayaking throughout our 165 miles of in December 2019 and early 2020. The State fined Fort
navigable waterways. Fishing lines are cast daily from land Lauderdale $2.1 million because of it. According to the Sun
and offshore. Our Venice of America is booming.
Sentinel, this was not only the largest spill, but the largest
But sadly, like the waters in Venice, our waters are consistently penalty in our state’s history. The city was given the option to
being contaminated from broken sewer line spills, storm-water put that fine money towards more than $3.1 million worth of
runoff, live-aboard dumping, plastics, fertilizer, landscape future environmental restoration projects. Qualifying projects
waste, and other harmful contaminants. In our recent historic could include mangrove restoration, updating seawalls and
flooding event alone, bacteria in our canals and waterways water quality projects, but could not be used to repair pipes.

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