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Friends of the Everglades urges delegation to prioritize restoration and oppose detention‑center impacts
Summary
Gil Smart of Friends of the Everglades urged lawmakers to pursue a new phase of Everglades restoration, criticized the Everglades Detention Center ("Alligator Alcatraz") for alleged habitat loss and lack of environmental review, and asked the delegation to support protections for wetlands and local planning authority.
Gil Smart, policy director for Friends of the Everglades, told the delegation his organization has filed legal challenges to the Everglades Detention Center (which the group called "Alligator Alcatraz") and said the facility is causing "irreparable harm" including new pavement and high‑intensity lighting in prime habitat for endangered species. He said the construction occurred with "no public input, no environmental impact study as required by the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA," and asked lawmakers to consider alternatives.
Smart framed his group's "Rescue the River of Grass" campaign as a call for the next phase of Everglades restoration, which would include land acquisition to stop harmful discharges, stronger wetland protections, water‑quality improvements, ending sugarcane burning and more cautious development. He urged the delegation to support revisions to last session's Senate Bill 180 to restore local planning authority and reduce litigation risk.
Smart offered Friends of the Everglades as a resource to lawmakers and emphasized the ecosystem's long‑term needs beyond the existing Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP).
