Guest commentary: Climate, wetlands and right to clean, healthy waters
I live on Southwest 1st Court in Cape Coral, in a house built in 1967. Back then, few people worried or even knew about climate change. Those days are gone.
Hurricane Ian, supercharged by global warming, inflicted $120,000 of damage upon my house, mostly by storm surge, and my home and flood insurance premiums currently totaling $9,700 reflect future risk.
Climate change now impacts our daily lives, and combatting it isn’t just about fossil fuels.
When it comes to mitigating the causes and effects of our climate crisis, water is a “super-power.” The final declaration of the United Nations climate conference known as COP27 recognized “the critical role of protecting, conserving and restoring water and water-related ecosystems in delivering climate adaptation benefits and co-benefits.”
Regarding the sequestration and storage of carbon, coastal wetlands — such as many Cape Coral, Sanibel, and other Lee County residents are fortunate to have — are powerhouses.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that “mangroves and coastal wetlands annually sequester carbon at a rate ten times greater than mature tropical forests and, according to Economist Impact, fifty-five times faster than tropical forests. They also store three to five times more carbon per equivalent area than tropical forests.”
Thus, Florida’s important means of reducing greenhouse gases and mitigating the effects of climate change — worsening floods, storm surge, saltwater intrusion — is its wetlands, especially its coastal wetlands.
The flipside of this is that when wetlands are destroyed, not only do we lose their important sequestration and storage capabilities, but the carbon they have long stored is released and adds to greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere, exacerbating our climate crisis.
Wetlands provide irreplaceable local benefits, too.
A Nature Conservancy-funded study showed that annually, across multiple storms, Florida’s mangroves reduce flood damages by 25.5% to properties behind them. During Hurricane Irma, more than 626,000 people living behind mangrove forests saw reduced flooding and mangroves averted $1.5 billion in surge-related flood damages to properties.
Finally, wetlands, of course, also offer valuable water filtration services, shoreline erosion protection, and serve as crucial fish and wildlife habitat, all profoundly important to Floridians.
Unfortunately, even though Florida has already lost 9.3 million acres, reckless development continues to swallow up more wetlands. Developers, with the aid of our state government that passes atrocious laws like 2023’s “sprawl law,” will not stop unless we stop them.
There are hundreds of acres of mixed wetlands and uplands, mostly wetlands, directly south of Rotary Park in Cape Coral. Southwest 1st Court forms their eastern border. Knowing that Cape Coral is one of nine cities most at risk from future storms, community residents want as much storm protection and flood mitigation as we can get, and those wetlands provide it.
But they are under threat of development as the property owner continues to seek an amendment to the city’s comprehensive plan changing the current zoning of their property from “Preserve” to “Mixed Use” despite strong opposition from a concerned community.
City department heads bear out those concerns. “With the looming threat of sea level rise and climate change,” one has stated, “I don’t believe it would be good for community climate change resiliency policy to continue permitting developments close to high hazard zones next to water.”
“Removal of mangroves,” says another, “would weaken the buffering capacity of the mangrove area which protects the city against storms.”
But department heads don’t make the final decision, and if our current or a future city council changes the zoning of this property, and if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issues a 404 permit, there is little if anything the community can do to stop this climate-blind Redfish Pointe development.
By failing to protect our wetlands, we undermine our ability to confront a crisis that poses such an enormous threat to Floridians. This is where a proposed “Right to Clean and Healthy Waters” State Constitutional Amendment can be of crucial help.
When it comes to wetlands, both local governments and the Army Corps of Engineers work with state agencies. Because the amendment enables us to hold agencies accountable for harm or threatened harm to our aquatic ecosystems, with this fundamental right we could protect Florida’s wetlands when other means fail. The amendment language specifically addresses “aquatic ecosystem services including carbon storage, water filtration, and risk mitigation for drought, erosion, and floods.”
Other states have environmental rights enshrined in their constitutions. We need this right in ours. More than two hundred organizations and businesses throughout the state agree, including the Calusa Waterkeeper, Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation, SWFL Conservancy, Friends of the Everglades, VoteWater, Florida Sportsman, and the League of Women Voters.
But they can’t place the amendment on the ballot for voters to vote on, and our Legislature won’t, so it’s up to us.
Joseph Bonasia is operations and communications director for FloridaRightToCleanWater.org. For more information, visit FloridaRightToCleanWater.org.