Lost World of Miami Marine Stadium

It’s hard to believe it now, given the condition of the Miami Marine Stadium - an abandoned shell on Virginia Key’s waterfront - - but this was once touted as one of our community’s preeminent entertainment venues.

"The Miami Marine Stadium is a unique public facility with few counterparts anywhere in the world...a masterfully designed waterfront outdoor stadium with full visibility...offering a beautiful skyline view of Great Miami and Miami Beach over the sparkling waters of Biscayne Bay."

That world lives on in the Florida Collection of the Miami Dade Public Library in a marketing brochure that, judging from the photos of the (modest) bikini-clad ladies, was circulated in the late 1960's.

“Days and Nights” the stadium pulses, according to the marketing materials that boast of a floating stage with acoustical shell anchored 30 feet from the grandstand, strategically placed loudspeakers that are part of “one of the finest outdoor sound systems in the country,” and a built-in concession balcony in the grandstand.

Raw Sewage in Biscayne Bay Norm until Sewage Treatment Facility built on Virginia Key

The 20 million gallons of raw sewage that spewed into Biscayne Bay from a broken pipe last weekend grabbed headlines but until the sewage treatment plant was built on Virginia Key in the 1950’s, raw sewage in the Miami River and Biscayne Bay was the norm.

A dirty little secret that threatened to derail the fun-in-the-sun tourist mecca. Not to mention sicken the residents.

At the time, 29 sewers dumped untreated sewage into the Miami River and another 41 sanitary sewers dumped directly into Biscayne Bay.

According to a 2000 environmental study of Biscayne Bay by NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), the area between 79th Street Causeway and a line between Dinner Key and Cape Florida received a steady dose of pollution in high concentrations. The area was closed to swimming and residents were warned not to use the Bay. Quoting an engineer who observed the conditions in 1949, the reports stated:

A boat trip in the bay and out the main channel gives the visitor a chance to contrast the dark brown-gray polluted water near the city with the beautiful blue-green ocean water.

On the other hand, construction of the sewage treatment plant, while solving one problem, created another. One which we are still grappling with today.

Some say the construction of the Wastewater Treatment Plant on Virginia Key hastened the beginning of environmental degradation of the island, along with the decision to use Duck Lake and the interior land as a unlined dump (now closed), which at one point, received sewage sludge.

And the sewage (now treated) and emerging as “effluent” is still dumped into the water - this time a mile out to sea.

The pollution is out there. Still.





Resources:
http://www.rsmas.miami.edu/groups/mrc/river3.htm

Virginia Key: the heart of Biscayne Bay


In 1877, Commodore Ralph Munroe, for whom the Miami Marine Stadium is named, sailed for the first time from Key West to Miami. His route: Biscayne Bay. The Bay was the community’s highway, north and south and from the Atlantic to the mainland.

Though our highways are now steel and concrete, Biscayne Bay remains an important corridor -- a critical link to our environmental heritage.

And Virginia Key is at the heart of that corridor, connecting North and South Biscayne Bay.

“The pivotal location of Virginia Key offers the opportunity to interpret and manifest the diverse natural and cultural heritage of Biscayne Bay through a network of aqualinks - an Aqua Necklace ....to connect the waterfront resources of Biscayne Bay.”

This was the recommendation of the Virginia Key Park Civil Rights Task Force to the City of Miami Commission in 2000.

The task force went on to enumerate the many ecological, historic and recreational sites along the Bay that would be linked - starting with Oleta State Recreation Area in the North to Biscayne National Park Convoy Point Visitor’s Center in the south. In between would be historic sites - the Miami Circle, The Barnacle, the Charles Deering Estate and trailheads and wildlife observation areas, including preserves and refuges.

“A string of pearls” they called this “aqualink” and Virginia Key would be the Aqua Pearl in the center.

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