Collier County and the Development Express — EATING FLORIDA

Since much of Collier County is part of the critically important western Everglades-Big Cypress eco-system, we’ll kick-off our discussion with a brief introduction to that most interesting wetland. Big Cypress Swamp is a 2,400 square mile region of varied ecosystems in the southwestern part of the Kissimmee-Okeechobee-Everglades Basin. The watershed defining the Big Cypress is an irregularly shaped semi-circular form tracing its way from just south of Ft. Myers and extending in a northeasterly direction past Corkscrew Swamp, Lake Trafford, and the City of Immokalee. From there it stretches straight east almost as far as the Miami Canal, and then south and southwest to Lostman’s River on the Gulf of Mexico, an area most people think is part of the central Everglades. Many different and quietly spectacular threads are interwoven to form the tapestry that is the Big Cypress: baldcypress forests, mixed swamp forests like the magical Fakahatchee Strand, pine flatwoods, bayheads, wet prairies, sawgrass marshes, and tropical hardwood hammocks.

Although much of that area is technically classified as baldcypress forest, today very few of the truly great baldcypress giants remain. A century of human depredation and ruthless exploitation of its timber resources that ceased barely four decades ago have reduced the Big Cypress to a highly stressed ecosystem. Only in the National Audubon Society’s magnificent Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary do sufficient numbers of the ancient giants remain to remind us of the former grandeur of southwestern Florida. But enough survive to give eager adventurers thrills to last several lifetimes (Corkscrew Swamp will be discussed later in the blog).

Collier County was the brainchild of none other than Barron Gift Collier Senior, a land developer who first made multiple millions as an advertising executive in New York from his highly successful business selling advertising card franchises to the nation’s trolley, train, and subway lines. Based in New York City, Collier Senior’s Consolidated Street Railway Advertising Company led the market in mass transit advertising with affiliates in over 70 cities in the U.S., Canada, and even Cuba. He saw an opportunity to make more millions and moved to south Florida. Naturally.

Barron Gift Senior first bought Useppa Island and, liking what he saw, between 1921 and 1923 he jumped in with both feet, buying 1.3 million water-logged acres in Lee County from timber companies, the Trustees of the Florida Internal Improvement Fund, and from local land developers. He offered his money to the State on the proviso that if Lee County were split in two, and the southern half named Collier County, he would complete the Tamiami Trail with his own funds across southern Florida from Naples to Miami (Tamiami means Tampa to Miami).

How could the State possibly refuse such a magnanimous offer? Naturally, being in a perennially cash-strapped condition, it couldn’t. As an aside, you might wonder why anyone would want to name a county after himself. But you have to remember we’re talking about an advertising executive. For all too many guys like that, the glorification of self was then and is now, after money of course, the most sought after value.

Collier Senior started by dredging a canal from the mainland through the Ten Thousand Islands. To simplify things, he had huge piles of dredged material dumped in one location, raising its elevation above the surrounding wetland. He named the dump site Everglades City. It became his headquarters, the first seat of Collier County, and the base from which he constructed the Tamiami Trail. Collier Senior, convinced Everglades City would soon become the next metropolis of south Florida, constructed a number of fashionable buildings, hoping to attract more of his ilk, that is, moneyed people with absolutely no concern for the natural environment other than manipulating it to increase their wealth or their state of relaxation.

Author’s Note: Although visions of another Miami were floating in Barron’s head it is important for Readers to realize that in 1930 Collier County had only 2,883 residents and the far greater majority of land in southwest Florida consisted of low-lying wetlands that were inundated (Readers: when you see the word inundated you better start thinking between six to ten feet of water) at least half the year. Remember that most of those residents and all of the developers were people who admired the hell out of Hamilton Disston and Henry Flagler and even feisty ol’ Ed Ball, once he got his act together and started turning his opposition into road kill.

The next thing Collier Senior did was to begin construction of the Tamiami Trail and the road from Everglades City to Immokalee, which would later become State Route 29. For a few years everything was coming up roses. But then Fickle Fate hit its bi-polar stride and went on a mad downhill tear. Barron Gift Senior took a heavy financial hit in the land bust of 1926 and three years later lost the bulk of his fortune in the Great Depression. The good news is Collier Senior went broke before he could totally destroy the Big Cypress or put up yet more hotels, subdivisions, retail strip centers, and what gradually would have evolved into fast-food franchises. The real estate empire that he had fantasized would have stretched from Naples, across the heart of the Big Cypress, through the middle of the Everglades, and join hands with Miami. The man had dreams of eating every wetland he saw. Burp.

While cruising the internet, I found a Special Report in the Naples Daily News on water in Collier County that gave some space to the achievements of Barron Gift Senior. So, I decided to quote a paragraph or so to give Readers a real taste of the man and his dreams. Acting as a functioning dam across the State (since it was constructed above the flood line to ensure safe passage and had very few openings that would allow water to flow overland south to the Everglades), the Tamiami Trail irreversibly changed the way water flows through the southern Everglades and southern Collier County. That construction effort and its results were intentional and Collier himself wrote of his plans in the Collier County News:

Visualize, if you will, an area three times as large as the state of Rhode Island ... an empire if you please, in Dade, Monroe, Collier, and Hendry Counties heretofore inaccessible, now split wide open by this magnificent ribbon of pavement with laterals rapidly branching in every direction. With early completion now assured of the greatest drainage project of the ages, can you not see this empire peopled with a happy, healthy husbandry, and glistening with golden harvests — a wealth far surpassing that sought after by the conquistadors of centuries ago?

Now is not the time for you sharp-eyed Readers to lose sight of the critical Florida equation that has proved to be such an effective money-making machine: drained land = money. After reading those quotes about Collier’s “empire” and the “greatest drainage project of the ages,” I decided to let the people I’m flagellating have a larger voice in this discussion, so to speak. So, I went the Barron Collier Company (BCC) website and copied the following materials, in their entirety, and have included them below.

Barron Gift Collier, Sr., the founder of Barron Collier Company (BCC), was a visionary. Having made his fortune in streetcar advertising, he visited Southwest Florida in 1911 and was mesmerized by its beauty. During the early 1920s, he purchased 1.3 million acres of land that would later become Collier and Hendry Counties.

The first challenge in the development of his newly acquired land was the construction of the Tamiami Trail (US 41). This road, extending for 368 miles, was built through some of the most difficult terrain in the U.S. - mostly dense swamps and wilderness infested with snakes and alligators. The Tamiami Trail provided an urban link from Tampa to Miami.

Collier’s extraordinary accomplishments were born of more than unwavering determination and foresight. He was a man known for his fairness to employees and business associates, a keen business sense and respect for the land he managed. These qualities continue to serve as the cornerstone of BCC’s success.

Okay, with that odoriferous drek out of the way, we can take a breath of fresh air and get back to the real story, of course as told from my point of view. But you should always keep in mind that, according to the BCC, Barron Gift Senior had a good deal of “respect” for the snake and alligator infested land he managed. As long as he could drain and develop that wilderness, thus destroying it, and in the process force it to turn substantial profits no matter how beautiful it had been or how unique or how vital the role it played in supporting the entire southwestern part of the State. Too bad if all the snakes and alligators and their sensitive habitats were destroyed in the land development process. Ho-hum.

Today, the partially good news is a considerable amount of land in southern Collier County is either in the Big Cypress National Preserve, the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, Collier-Seminole State Park, or the Fakahatchee Strand State Park and, therefore, is somewhat protected from further human depredation. I use the word, somewhat, advisedly, being fully aware of the deleterious effects of the infamous canals and drainage ditches already in place, built by guys like Barron Senior and later by Leonard and Jack Rosen, and the Mackle brothers, owners of the Deltona Corporation (more on those bastards later).

Incidentally, it’s okay to spit when you read names like the Rosens and the Mackles. My wife tried to break me of the habit but gave up years ago, after her first visit to Marco Island.

Years after those developers departed the scene their “improvements” are still pumping fresh water, which is the Big Cypress’s arterial life blood, from the surrounding wetlands directly into Faka Union Bay. Who was it that said good deeds are short-lived but evil acts last forever? Especially in the State of Florida, where developers are next to God in the pantheon of politicians.

Now for a few reality-based observations. Modern civilization has not been kind to the western Everglades-Big Cypress ecosystem. Between 1963 and 1970, a period of widespread and virtually unregulated urban development (unregulated that is by the State or the County) by the Rosens’ Gulf American Corporation in the Golden Gate subdivision and in the Faka Union Basin, burning of the Big Cypress increased to approximately 8,800 acres per year. That’s about 13 square miles annually and over 100 square miles in total.

But, in the 1971-1975 period, after completion of Gulf American’s drainage canals, which were specifically designed to suck the life out of the wetlands and dry them to the state of cardboard, about 110,000 acres or 170 square miles burned annually. Although that figure may look substantial, until you realize it constitutes about one tenth annually of the total Collier County land mass you have little context in which to place it.

So, over those five terrible years (1971-1975), more than 850 square miles or approximately one-half of all Collier County burned. And those native trees and shrubs burned to bedrock because they had been drained dry by canals dug to do exactly that.

Every one of those acres was in the Big Cypress Swamp and was lost for many dozens of years, if not forever, as productive wetland habitat. All because of subdivision development, unfettered greed, and the absolute failure of State and local governmental jurisdictions to establish and enforce regulations that would protect sensitive environments. That’s what environmental destruction means and, as you read this page, it’s still a daily occurrence in all of southwestern Florida, but especially in Collier County, which has a well-deserved reputation for corrupt officials who, via under the table pay-offs and outrageous conflicts of interest, accommodated the worst land development schemes imaginable in a sensitive wetland.

Although various natural environments in southwest Florida have been savagely abused in the past seven decades, the Barron Collier Company itself and unrelated companies, several of which are owned by descendents of old Barron Gift Senior, continue to thrive. Again, allow me to quote from the same BCC website cited above.

Oil was discovered on company land in 1942 by the Humble Oil and Refining Company, today known as Exxon. Crude oil production commenced in 1943 and continues today. Barron Collier Company is a partner, along with Collier Enterprises, in Collier Resources Company, which manages these substantial mineral holdings.

Since 1990, Collier Resources has identified several potential new oil fields in Southwest Florida and is currently active in furthering exploration of Collier’s 840,000 acres of mineral assets. The company also monitors oil production and development operations in the three producing oil fields and the activities of oil operations in the region. A total of 54 million barrels of oil have been extracted to date. I’ve pasted below a direct quote from their website:

Protecting Florida’s environmental heritage is foremost in Collier Resources’ mission to find and develop energy resources and is demonstrated by a long history of stewardship.

We’ve been exploring and drilling for oil for almost 69 years. This includes 36 years in the Big Cypress National Preserve, which was created primarily from lands conveyed by the Collier family with the understanding that oil and gas exploration would continue. State commissions, including the Big Cypress Swamp Advisory Committee (BCSAC), have twice concluded that operations have been carried out safely and with minimal impacts to the surrounding environment.

As longtime landowners who live and work here, we are committed to balancing energy and environment.

It should be noted that much of the sub-surface mineral resources referred to above were, until 2003, owned or controlled by the BCC and the Collier Resources Company. Those mineral resources were under land owned by the National Park Service and occupied as the Big Cypress National Preserve.

Now, there’s something significant to think about. What do you think oil exploration and well drilling would do to the Big Cypress National Preserve’s fragile wetlands? Without going into the gory details, it would be very, very ugly. Lest sensitive Readers panic, they should take a peek at the following press release issued by the U.S. Department of the Interior on May 29, 2002.

The Interior Department has agreed in principle to acquire the mineral rights under Big Cypress National Preserve, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, and Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge from Collier Resources Company, virtually ensuring no new oil and gas development in the three areas, Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced today.

A lot more odious verbiage is available on the web if you want to read it. Actually you shouldn’t miss the part about the $120 million the Government paid to Collier Resources for said mineral rights. Had Barron Gift Senior been around to witness that transaction, he would have been bust-your-britches proud of his offspring for wringing more profits from the “wilderness,” which of course he respected a great deal.

With those accomplishments in mind, we have to add, even if it is reluctantly, Collier Senior’s name to the pantheon of good old boys who fathered the Florida land grab movement: Hamilton Disston, Henry Flagler, and Ed Ball. What a Club of Four they are. Being a member is quite a distinction and requires candidates to have destroyed hundreds of thousands of acres of “snake and alligator infested wilderness” to be eligible. And that’s an honor Barron Gift Collier Senior and his descendents certainly would accept with great pride. Because his goal was to grab those damned wetlands and twist and turn them until they made him millions and millions and more millions. Remember the critical equation:

Drained Land = Money

One indirect and delayed result of Barron Gift Senior’s initially unsuccessful efforts to develop the Big Cypress was a torrent of growth in the past several decades generated by land development firms, some of which are affiliated with various Collier-owned companies and many others that are not. Today, those developments have made the Naples region one of the fastest growing urban areas in the U.S., with the adjacent Ft. Myers-Cape Coral metropolitan area close behind.

Prior to the housing bust of 2008, urban-suburban type developments permitted by the Corps of Engineers, State agencies, and local-county governments were consuming more than a thousand acres of wetlands every year. And that number was growing, not decreasing. One statistic that should grab your attention is that southwest Florida has the first or second largest number of golf holes per capita in the U.S. Yes, golf courses, the far greater majority of which have the distinction of previously being cypress wetlands or sensitive pine flatlands.

Land developers in southwest Florida are determined to transform the entire area not currently protected by Federal or State ownership into an urban-suburban landscape that closely resembles that found in the southeastern part of the State. They want to build communities exactly like those that today extend from Palm Beach south to Homestead. Which means that if developers get their way, sensitive wetlands must be built over, just as they were in southeastern Florida. For the developers and their pet politicians, no other option exists. Especially considering the totally ineffective and practically non-existent land regulation posture of the State and the Federal governments with respect to the protection of wetlands.

Growth in southwest Florida is in the same out of control mode southeast Florida was in from 1920 to 1970. Allow me to illustrate the point. Population in Collier County grew from 6,488 people in 1950 to and estimated 321,520 in 2010. That’s a remarkable growth rate of 96.7 percent per decade, or 9.7 percent per year.

Author’s Note: In 1940, the year after Barron Gift Senior died, Collier County was home to a mere 5,102 people. In 2010, County population was 321,520. What’s even more incredible is that, if current growth rates do not slow dramatically, Collier County’s population is estimated to triple from 2000 to 2060, to about 800,000. Or just under 100 square miles of residential subdivisions. And that gives real-world meaning to the value-neutral word, growth, and to the reality of the looming environmental destruction of southwest Florida. Where does all that land come from, you know, to house an extra 500,000 people? Where else but from wetlands and “former” wetlands?

The critical problem in southwest Florida is no one in a position of political power has been willing to step up to the plate and try to stop the conversion of sensitive environments to human-altered landscapes. No White Knight U.S. Senator or Representative has stepped forward to spear-head the drive to save Florida wetlands from destruction. And why is that? Because in Florida land developers are so tight with the politicians you can’t pry them apart with a crowbar or a Bible. And the Corps of Engineers, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the U.S. EPA are doing what they do best: following their marching orders from those same Washington fat-cat politicians and ignoring the failing environments. As a result, the Big Cypress is being eaten at break-neck speed by land developers who make sure their pet politicians are kept in line through hefty political campaign contributions and other less socially acceptable rewards.

The big boys who feed at the top of the food chain always seem to get their way. Hey, that’s life as lived, especially in Florida. No matter what the public wants to think or how many lies the powerbrokers and their public relations lackeys tell to hide the unsavory reality. So, throw away those worthless high school civics books. We’re talking quintessential democracy in action. By any other name you want to call it, grease is as American as apple pie.

The sad but undisputable truth is that the southwest Florida development express is right on track. Its mission seems to be to destroy so many acres of wetland that 30 years from now the region will be forced to petition Congress for money to fund a Big Cypress Restoration Plan. To avoid non-sustainable conditions and socioeconomic collapse that their own actions will have caused. And then, after that Plan takes effect, the developers will proceed to build on more sensitive acres with water the conscienceless Corps of Engineers will cheerfully divert from the environment with their water management techniques. Simply because we all have turned our blind eyes from the nasty relationship between land developers and politicians and let them eat the wetlands.

Haven’t we learned any lessons from what has happened in Florida wetlands, especially the Everglades or the Kissimmee River? In truth, the only answer I can see is a resounding NO.