"We came to an understanding that additional drainage to fulfill what the developers had promised would damage the water supply to the park," says Sam Poole, who worked in the Dade County planning department in the 1980s. Until he was fired this past week, Poole was executive director of the South Florida Water Management District, which is charged with operating the corps' system of levees and canals.
In the late Seventies, the corps expanded an existing levee and added a pump station that provided flood protection for those who lived to the east of it, in effect drawing a line between inhabitable and uninhabitable land. But by that time there were already people residing west of the levee in the 81-2 Square Mile Area. So in 1981 the Dade County Commission passed a zoning overlay ordinance to limit any further development, permitting only one house per every 40 acres. The Aguileras were some of the last people to get building permits before the ordinance was enacted.
Meanwhile environmentalists and the Army Corps of Engineers worked together to help restore water flow to the Everglades. In 1989 the Modified Water Deliveries to Everglades National Park Project was authorized by Congress. The corps would rehydrate Shark River Slough by sending more water across more land. As a compromise a small levee and pump system would be built to ensure that any raised water levels would not hurt the 81-2 Square Mile Area.
But thinking changed. Environmentalists, county, water district, and park officials came to the consensus that even more water was needed to save the Everglades and that the corps project wouldn't work. They proposed buying the land. As long as there is any development, they claim, people will flock to the area and transform its rural character into suburban sprawl. "[Residents] say, 'We don't need flood protection' until it rains," Poole asserts. "They say they'll live in those houses without services, until they need those services." The South Florida Water Management District, prompted in part by Everglades National Park Superintendent Richard Ring, rejected the corps' levee plan officially on November 12, 1998, almost a decade after it had been authorized. Instead the water district opted to purchase the area using federal, state, and local funds. Those who would not sell their land would see it condemned, though they would be reimbursed.
Since the November decision, federal, state, and county officials have been casting about trying to find the money to buy the area. The county will vote on whether to provide $20 million in funds, but the county manager has yet to place the motion on the commission's calendar. Both sides of the issue have been lobbying county commissioners for their support. Attorney Dexter Lehtinen says he thinks the residents have the votes to win. If they do, the water district will go back to the corps' plan, Lehtinen believes. But even if the county commission supports the buyout, it still won't happen, he promises. "The bottom line is the county vote is important, but this project is dead no matter what the county commission does," he argues. "I would bank everything that this will never happen."
In the meantime the Cubans who have rarely been heard in public debates or in the media have found a voice. They hired Ibel Aguilera full-time to lobby politicians to their cause. One of the earliest governmental converts was State Sen. Manuel Prieguez, who represents a large part of Little Havana. Prieguez helped organize a fact-finding tour of the area for State Sen. J.D. Alexander and Allison DeFoor, Gov. Jeb Bush's Everglades restoration coordinator. DeFoor also invited Bill Leary, an advisor to Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt.
"If I was going to live in Dade County, that's where I would want to be," DeFoor says. "It's a neat place."
He says the extent of development in the area is much greater than he was led to believe, and he thinks it's unlikely that people will leave willingly. In addition he is not convinced there is a true scientific need for them to go. The tour ended with a feast of barbecued pork at Rancho Alegre.
There is another, very unscientific, element to the land controversy, residents claim: "This could boil down to a racial issue," Ibel Aguilera says. She and other locals think their Hispanic origins play a role, and point to the wealthy west Broward suburb of Weston, which was constructed directly in the path of Shark River Slough. Nobody is threatening their homes, residents protest. Lehtinen doesn't believe the motivation to take over the land is racist, but rather that procurement would be easier if the residents don't speak English. "The ability to pull it off is significantly founded on [the idea that] 'It's the poor and the minorities who get hurt, so who cares?'" he says.
Environmentalists reject the notion. "I find it hard to call it a racial thing," offers Mark Kraus, conservation director for the National Audubon Society's Everglades task force. "It is unfortunate, but they are in the wrong place."
For the Aguileras, short of Cuba, there is no other place.
"We need this," Lao says a few weeks after the night at Delio's, as he patiently soaps down a horse in the stable behind his house now bathed in the soft glow of afternoon twilight. "There comes a time when us guajiros build a love of a piece of land. Since I left Cuba, I've had the same telephone number, the same address. If I fall asleep on my horse, it will come here.
