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in the Miami River? Tliere are those in the city today wlio can remember when 

 the swimming in that river was great. 



The spectre of pollution hangs over Biscayne Bay, and I maintain that the 

 major reason is voter apathy. "The County should do something" is the recurring 

 cry, but YOU are the County. These are your waterways, your creeks and rivers, 

 your bay. Pinellas County is now some 90 per cent sewered. It happened in a 

 relatively short time, and it happened only because the people were willing to 

 become involved. I must admit, however, that the real driving force there was 

 the women. County officials were elected or defeated on the basis of their stand 

 on this one issue. Bond issues were pushed and voted through. They got what 

 they felt was needed, but only by 'becoming involved, working for what they 

 needed, and seeing that it was accomplished. We can do this in Dade County. It 

 will take a lot of work hy a lot of dedicated people, but it can be done if the 

 people will rise up en mass and demand that it be accomplished. The Zoological 

 Society of Florida can and should play an important role in this "popular 

 uprising". 



Getting rid of the wastes of a busy metropolitan complex is just one of the 

 many and conflicting uses to which our bay is being put. The thermal effects of 

 the Turkey Point power plant coolant water discharge is — both literally and 

 figuratively — a "hot" issue right now. Tou notice that I say "thermal effects" 

 rather than the more popular term "thermal pollution", for my contention is that 

 until we know exactly what the effects are, we are pre-judging the case by calling 

 it "pollution". This use of the bay is another conflicting use. A new seaport has 

 recently been proposed for southern Dade County, and a study by the Bechtel 

 Corp. has been released. A bridge-causeway joining Fisher Island to Virginia Key 

 has long been in the planning stages, and the recently announced plans for the 

 development of Fisher Island have brought this plan to the forefront again. The 

 New Port of Miami has a 25-year development plan that calls for eventual use 

 of Lumas Island as the eastward extension of the Port. The deepening of the ship 

 channel to Dodge Island has long been pushed as a needed improvement. The 

 location of the bulkhead line is still in contention. A large National Monument 

 for the southern part of Biscayne Bay is well along on the road to realization. 

 The City and County have this spring agreed to set aside some 162 acres on 

 Virginia Key as a marine science park, and this will include the dredging of a 

 channel into an oeeanographic small-boat marina north of the Marine Stadium. 

 The new Miamarina at the north end of Bayfront Park is nearing completion. 

 The bulkheading of the south side of Dodge Island is on the books, and I am sure 

 that there are other plans afoot for Biscayne Bay about which I do not know. 

 The point here is that things are happening in Biscayne Bay. They will continue 

 to happen. Change is not bad per se, but haphazard changes to Biscayne Bay 

 carried out within the present framework for effecting such changes could be 

 disasterous. As of today, dictated primarily by the unenlightened apathy of the 

 residents of Dade County, the use of the bay will continue to go to the group 

 with the most money, the most political "pull", or the group that shouts the 

 loudest. It could result in anything hut what I like to call "the greatest good for 

 the greatest number of people." 



Let me assume that the problem has been adequately stated, that you realize 

 that unless something is done a great natural resource will little by little be 

 whittled away until it becomes a liability rather than a great natural asset. The 

 question then becomes "What can be done about it?". 



I would like to approach answering this question in two ways. First, what has 

 happened elsewhere and what is being done at the Federal level ; and secondly, 

 what should we do here in Dade County. 



San Francisco Bay is farther down the road than we are here, so a look at San 

 Francisco Bay today may well be a look at Biscayne Bay in the future. What has 

 happened there? In the mid-nineteenth century San Francisco Bay with its 

 marshlands covered some 6S0 square miles. Extensive bulkheading and filling has 

 reduced this to little more than 400 square miles today. Of the 280 miles of shore- 

 line, only about ten miles are open for public access. The boundary lines of nine 

 counties and 32 cities extend into the bay, about 22 per cent of the bay has been 

 sold by the state into private ownership (mainly the shallow areas where filling 

 is easiest), and 23 per cent has been granted by the state to cities and counties — 

 generally with filling in mind. In brief, the bay was steadily being used up, the 

 pollution was bad and getting worse, and the bay itself was under the control of 

 an incredible number of separate jurisdiction and private ownerships. California 

 did two things. It appointed a San Fxancisco Bay Conservation and Development 

 Commission — an interesting juxtaposition of two terms that are so often in dire 



