Environmentalists Challenge Miami Port Dredging Project

Environmentalists are protesting a project to dredge, widen and deepen the Port of Miami with the argument that the plans will threaten water quality, coral reefs and marine life.

Backers of the new project believe that once the Panama Canal is finally widened and brings larger freighters up north, this project will attribute an economic boom. Many American ports are competing in similar ways for business and to accommodate the larger cargo ships that will now be able to pass through. The opposition states that the financial benefits are much more unclear than the ecological damage that will certainly occur.

Florida’s Department of Environmental Protection said that the petition is currently in review and being reconsidered. This is temporarily delaying the DEP’s ability to give a final permit to begin dredging, expected some time next year.

Although the dredging could impact sea life like manatees, sea turtles, and whales; the project is being billed as a creator of jobs in Florida. However, it could also threaten tourism, Florida’s main industry. The plan has initially called for moving the coral that will be impacted directly and seeding additional sea grasses to replace the damaged.