Greens Cause Floods

by Jeremy Sapienza

In light of the recent flooding of most of Western Dade and Broward Counties in South Florida, I’d like to propose a plan, so that what happened this week never happens again. We got a freak string of rainstorms, which were totally unexpected, and grossly underestimated. We only realized the problem when it was already to late. Hundreds of cars stalled in high flood waters as people came home from work to the western suburbs. Thousands of homes are water damaged, and as I write this, some are still flooded. Probably hundreds of millions of dollars worth of damage has been done, to property, and also the local economy from the days off people will need to get their lives back in order. I haven’t been personally affected by flooding, because I live out east in the city, in civilization, as far from gated communities full of identical pink boxes with barrel tiled roofs and massive strip centers with acres of parking as possible. But that doesn’t keep me from sympathizing, and joining in the blame game!

Why did it happen? Don’t blame the weather people. The fault lies squarely on the enviro-freaks who have been campaigning to save the Everglades. They are having the Army Corps of Engineers "restore" the "natural flow" of water that keeps South Florida civilization from expanding, and bounds our economy in. We are held hostage by a fetid swamp, and we are taxed to support it.

To make matters worse, we have a drainage system that was built for two million people. It is now used by six million people.

There is a simple solution to our flooding problems, but a lot of treehuggers won’t like it. I propose that, since the government owns the Everglades, and they are the ones who are selling out the humans in South Florida in order to save some ugly brown birds who eat mosquito maggots out of stagnant water, that they actually do something to save us instead.* The Engineers should bring all their heavy machinery to the Southern shore of Lake Okeechobee (the "hole" in Florida on the map), and drag a two-mile-wide, super-deep canal all the way south to Florida Bay, between the mainland and the Keys. Then connect all the east-west canals from the cities to this big one, and we will never have a problem with flooding again!

Just thought I’d put in my two cents, not like it’ll happen. As long as our government (and society’s) environmental policies and beliefs define "good" as what is good for bugs and dirt, instead of what is good for humans, you can expect to be able to boogie-board to work in South Florida at least a couple weeks a year.

*Disclaimer: of course I think all the land should be private, but it ain’t, so bear with me.

October 6, 2000

Jeremy [send him mail] is a real estate agent in Miami Beach. He edits anti-state.com, an anarcho-capitalist magazine and provides free email addresses for anarchists at anarchomail.com.