Virginia Key's "Endangered Lands"

“Virginia Key is a barrier island on Biscayne Bay with a spectacular but fragile environment.

This natural barrier island contains seagrass bed and intertidal sand/mud flats, mangroves and herbaceous wetlands, beach dune communities and coastal hammocks. These ecologically important areas provide habitat for hundreds of species of fish, marine invertebrate, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, birds and plants.”

Does that sound like the kind of place that should be placed for protection under Miami-Dade County’s Environmentally Endangered Lands (EEL) Program?**

The Sierra Club Miami Group, Tropical Audubon Society and the Izaak Walton League Miami Chapter think so. That’s why they filed an application in November 2009 asking for a biological evaluation of the island to determine which areas of the island might qualify.

A study is underway with teams of biologists already combing through the island. A recommendation and public hearings will be held in the next few months.

If approved by the City and County Commission (citizen support will be needed), Virginia Key (or at least its wilderness areas) may one day join more than 18,350 acres in Miami Dade County permanently protected from development under the EEL program, which is administered by Miami Dade County’s Department of Environment Management (DERM).

This is the second go-round for the Sierra Club Miami Group, which filed its original EEL application for Virginia Key in 1999, when the City of Miami was considering commercial development of parts of the island. That application resulted in a positive recommendation but the process of acquisition came to a halt after the City of Miami abruptly changed city managers.

The current EEL application asks the County to take a look at these areas of Virginia Key:
-The Marine Stadium area and water basin, which fronts the Bill Sadowski Critical Wildlife Area;
The historic Virginia Key Beach Park, with its restored wetlands, dunes, mangroves and hammock lands and 2,500 feet of sea-turtle-nesting beaches along Bear Cut;
-The North Point, where significant dune and wetlands mitigation and restored areas abound amid manatee and sea turtle habitat.
-Portions of the Virginia Key Landfill, a 120-acre site now closed for public use that includes 15 acres of wetlands, a hammock on the northeast edge and mangroves on the western edge. Under EEL, portions of the lands could be restored, and enhanced to be used as buffer areas.
-The Beach, Hammock and Lagoon area, a 72-acre site with 5,000 feet of beachfront along Bear Cut, a 14.5 acre hardwood hammock and 4 acres prime coastal hammock, which is also manatee and sea turtle habitat.
-Shrimper’s Lagoon, an 8 acre lagoon with a channel to Norris cut, which is predominantly wetlands and a manatee protection zone.
-The Bill Sadowski Critical Wildlife Area, the biological gem and heart of the island, with 460 acres of mangroves, marsh and tidal flats. This is a state-designated bird and wildlife preserve, bird-nesting area and manatee and sea turtle habitat area.

** The EEL program is a tax-payer funded program in the tax-payer funded program created in 1990 to acquire, restore and maintain environmentally significant lands in our community. http://www.miamidade.gov/derm/program_EEL.asp