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Biscayne Bay Summit Seeks 10-Year Plan For Preservation

A view of Biscayne Bay from the Julia Tuttle Causeway. A wide swath of seagrass between the Tuttle and 79th Street causeways has died off in recent months.
Marc Averette via Wikimedia Commons
A view of Biscayne Bay from the Julia Tuttle Causeway. A wide swath of seagrass between the Tuttle and 79th Street causeways has died off in recent months.

Biscayne Bay is in trouble. Biologists say about 21 square miles of its seagrass have died off in the past decade. 

It’s contaminated with litter and runoff from storm drains. 

Organizers of a summit taking place Wednesday at Florida International University’s Biscayne Bay campus are hoping to change that.

Luiz Rodrigues is the former director of the Environmental Coalition of Miami and the Beaches. He decided to organize the summit in part because he got frustrated that cleanup efforts by his group and others just didn’t work.

"Day after day, month after month, you’d go back to the same spot that we had just cleaned a week ago and that place was full of trash once again," he said.

Steve Sauls is a retiree and avid kayaker who’s volunteering at the summit. He worked in Washington for former Sen. Bob Graham and also was a vice president at FIU, and he said the time has come for a big-picture collaboration among local leaders, researchers and activists.

"We need to begin to take a look deeper at the policy, why trash is continuing to flow into the bay in such huge volumes, and what can we do if we resolve to do something about it," Sauls said.

Summit attendees will learn about the challenges the bay faces and begin developing a 10-year plan for restoration.

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Kate Stein can't quite explain what attracts her to South Florida. It's more than just the warm weather (although this Wisconsin native and Northwestern University graduate definitely appreciates the South Florida sunshine). It has a lot to do with being able to travel from the Everglades to Little Havana to Brickell without turning off 8th Street. It's also related to Stein's fantastic coworkers, whom she first got to know during a winter 2016 internship.Officially, Stein is WLRN's environment, data and transportation journalist. Privately, she uses her job as an excuse to rove around South Florida searching for stories à la Carl Hiaasen and Edna Buchanan. Regardless, Stein speaks Spanish and is always thrilled to run, explore and read.