Stopping this project won’t affect current operations at Port Everglades.
What is the U.S. Army Corps seeking to do? Well, port dredging projects typically maintain or deepen navigational channels by clearing paths in and out of the port through an underwater excavation process that removes sand, silt, rocks, and other debris from the floor of a body of water.
And it's simple: We don’t have an issue with these maintenance dredging projects, which keep the port functioning. What we're challenging is a different kind of dredging project, one that aims to not only deepen, but widen the port. Without extreme caution, this type of dredging can cause long-lasting environmental destruction — deleting areas of reef and generating massive amounts of sediment.
For coral reefs on the seafloor — especially the threatened ones adjacent to Port Everglades — construction turns their neighborhood into a sandstorm that lasts for years. Corals can be choked, buried, and starved of sunlight by dredged-up clouds of murky sediments. Even limited damage can cascade into mass die-off and disease that spreads beyond the dredging location.
The good news? Port dredging can be done more responsibly through intentional design. The use of low-impact equipment, prohibiting sedimentation overflow, and implementing other measures that prioritize environmental protection are essential strategies to protect and minimize damage to a reef system already under pressure from warming waters.
Unfortunately, the Corps’ current plan rejects most of these minimization measures, choosing to save costs over saving our reefs.
