Florida DEP – Don’t Exploit Parks  

By Tony Murray, Big Bend Coastal Conservancy  

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection presented its initial public announcement Monday of plans to collectively, secretly and expeditiously sacrifice nine of our 175 state parks throughout Florida to the development of golf courses, modern resort-style lodging and pickleball courts.   

The required public meetings about this proposal were pre-planned for all nine sites to be held at the exact same time in eight separate counties. Additionally, these meetings were scheduled for just eight days after the announcement – on this upcoming Tuesday, Aug. 27.  

Imagine the strategizing and planning by DEP that went into organizing this schedule, systematically disenfranchising citizens of Florida input. Additionally, per a reported leaked memo from DEP, “The Office of Park Planning has been directed to play pre-recorded presentations, then receive and record feedback at these meetings without answering questions.”   

DEP’s presented plans are for the commercialization, development and buildout of: 1) golf courses, 2) two sets of 350-room hotels and additional cabins and “glamping” areas, 3) pickleball courts and frisbee golf courses, all under the guise of “enhancing public access.”  

These nine separate plans are mislabeled as DEP’s Great Outdoors Initiative. Details for each park’s exploitation are available on a variety of sites.  We need to ask ourselves, what are the next set of Florida State Parks slated for DEP’s next exploitation?   

Without going into details on each separate park’s planned exploitative issues, let’s just deal with this ludicrous idea as the single abusive package that it is. Here’s exactly why: DEP’s job and duty are to preserve and protect state lands in perpetuity for future generations, not exploit and shred them via profiteering for golf courses and 350-room hotels on state-owned park property. DEP’s job is to engage and support citizen’s input, not strategically circumvent community interests and input.   

Here’s some individual points on what is collectively abusive of this planned DEP exploitation. Consider the following questions:  

• Does Martin County need two additional 18-hole golf courses and a nine-hole golf course to add to the 35 golf courses already in the county or the estimated 1,100 golf courses in the state of Florida? 
• Annual application rates of fertilizer can be between 60,000 and 100,000 pounds of nitrogen per year for a single 18-hole (about 150 acre) golf course. Now multiply this by 2.5 for the two 18-hole and one nine-hole golf courses presented. This does not include the pesticides and fungicide usages. Are this is being planned in a state park adjoining the Indian River? 
• Why and when did DEP enter the business of building, running and maintaining hotels, and why does it want to put them in state parks? People go to state parks to get away from hotels. 
• What is the actual value of pickleball courts to get people outdoors at state parks? Pickleball courts are available in town.   
• What are the total acres of impacted land to accommodate the footprints of all of the golf courses, hotels, pickleball courts with associated parking lots, roads, bathrooms and paths that will be taken from the flora and fauna to accommodate these components?  

These features are unneeded, unwanted and overly exploitative, directly damaging the reason people go to state parks to experience the wildlife and associated habitats. Hats off to all of the conservation groups, businesses and thoughtful individuals for quickly mobilizing and responding to DEP’s actions.  

DEP, we are paying attention, and yes, we are outraged on a wide variety of levels.  These actions are unacceptable.   

The Florida Wildlife Federation’s Call to Action is where individuals can immediately sign on and log your opinion on DEP’s exploitive action.  Feel free to entitle your email “DEP – Don’t Exploit OUR Parks”  

DEP, we “Do Expect Protection” of our parks; This is your job.    

Tony Murray is founder/director of the Big Bend Coastal Conservancy and an environmental scientist with over 30 years of experience. Editor’s note: After this piece was published, DEP announced new dates for the public meetings would be scheduled at larger venues.

If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe at ncrabbe@fau.edu. Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here.