Hurricane Irma, Marco Island, and wetlands protection
Marco Island in 1964 (left) and present day (Michael Coleman) Slate recently published a piece by Henry Grabar, "The Lessons of Marco Island" , on the Florida island that was savaged by Hurricane Irma last week and the legal history that enabled its development while protecting nearby wetlands. Some highlights: Forty years ago, the consensus of the state and federal governments was that Marco Island should not have been built at all. The community was the setting for one of the biggest development controversies in the United States and nearly ruined one of Florida’s largest and most celebrated developers. In a region with a notorious building addiction, it became the site of the environmental movement’s greatest victory over the Florida growth machine. Ecological foresight halted millions of dollars in real estate development and all but ended an engineering technique that had turned the South Florida coast from swampland to resort. ***** When brothers Robert, Elliott, and Fr...