Florida Guides Win a Round Against an Everglades Rock Mine

A settlement has produced an amended Environmental Sources Allow for a proposed rock mine in Florida’s Everglades Agricultural Space, clarifying the mission’s permitted scope and requiring new permits for any enlargement—however the mission survives, and Military Corps overview remains to be pending.

A February settlement among the many Tropical Audubon Society, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and mine operator Phillips & Jordan has produced an amended Environmental Sources Allow for a proposed rock mine within the Everglades Agricultural Space, establishing that DEP approval covers just one,337 acres of excavation inside a 2,242-acre first-phase footprint—and doesn’t greenlight the total 8,632-acre web site. For fishing guides and conservation teams who’ve fought for greater than a 12 months to guard one of many nation’s premier saltwater fisheries, it’s a partial victory.

The settlement resolves a problem Tropical Audubon filed towards the DEP’s Might 29, 2025 Discover of Intent for the Southland Water Useful resource Challenge—the identify Phillips & Jordan gave to what opponents name a limestone rock mine dressed up as a restoration reservoir. Phillips & Jordan, which had intervened within the problem, can be a celebration to the settlement. Any mining past the 1,337-acre first section would require new allow functions and full environmental overview. It doesn’t kill the mission.

What’s at Stake

The Everglades’ flats and backcountry are among the many most sought-after fly fishing locations within the nation—prime water for tarpon, snook, and redfish. How a lot of that fishery survives the subsequent few many years hinges on a single building mission: the Everglades Agricultural Area Reservoir (EAA Reservoir), a virtually $4 billion, 10,500-acre impoundment being constructed by the U.S. Military Corps of Engineers south of Lake Okeechobee. When full, it is going to retailer and clear polluted lake water earlier than sending it south via the Everglades to Florida Bay. The Military Corps describes it as probably one of many largest above-ground reservoirs within the nation.

That reservoir is what the mine threatens.

The proposed mine web site sits on land owned by U.S. Sugar Company and a Florida Crystals subsidiary. Captains for Clear Water says it might be roughly 1,000 ft from the reservoir. Phillips & Jordan, a nationwide infrastructure contractor, filed an unsolicited utility to mine limestone there on July 1, 2024—the day Florida enacted statutes permitting unsolicited restoration proposals. The corporate says the excavated pits would ultimately maintain as much as 40 billion gallons of water, contributing to Everglades restoration after a 34-year mining operation—its county utility specifies blasting in 13 phases from 2025 via 2059. Capt. Chris Wittman, co-founder of Captains for Clean Water, argues that framing obscures what the mission actually is: a limestone extraction operation the group estimates is value greater than $800 million.

Will Buehn, the group’s director of schooling and consciousness, warned that blasting subsequent to the EAA Reservoir may compromise its structural integrity, triggering polluted discharges that kill seagrasses and trigger large-scale fish die-offs within the estuaries.

How Guides Received Concerned

Captains for Clear Water has led the opposition. Wittman and Capt. Daniel Andrews co-founded the group in February 2016; Andrews later left his constitution enterprise to function government director. Each constructed their careers as southwest Florida fishing guides. The group had already spent years pushing Everglades restoration and preventing discharge-fueled algal blooms earlier than the Southland utility landed.

Wittman testified on the Palm Seaside County Fee’s Might 22, 2025 listening to, the place commissioners unanimously permitted zoning for the total 8,632-acre mission. He was one in every of dozens of guides, scientists, and anxious residents who stuffed the listening to corridor. Commissioners lower the usual three-minute public remark interval to 2 minutes per speaker—together with for authorized and scientific consultants who’re sometimes given extra time. Video from that listening to has since drawn greater than 6 million views on Captains for Clear Water’s YouTube channel.

After the county vote, the mission nonetheless wanted state allowing. On Might 29, the DEP issued a Discover of Intent to grant an Environmental Sources Allow—the motion Tropical Audubon would later problem. The Everglades Regulation Middle filed that authorized problem in August 2025 on behalf of Tropical Audubon and two of its members—José Francisco Barros and Brian Rapoza, the group’s president and vice chairman—who chook the EAA and testified to the mine’s potential hurt to the realm’s wildlife. A two-week listening to earlier than Administrative Regulation Decide Francine Ffolkes was scheduled for late February 2026. The settlement got here 5 days earlier than it was set to start.

What the Settlement Really Does

The deal provides specificity to the DEP’s allow: it clarifies that approval covers solely the overall location of 13 deliberate excavation cells, mandates water high quality monitoring if water strikes to or from the positioning, and requires a brand new allow for any design adjustments. The Everglades Regulation Middle stated the adjustments are supposed to guarantee higher public scrutiny on future phases.

The settlement stops there. It doesn’t restrict the mission’s whole footprint or forestall Phillips & Jordan from ultimately searching for permits for all 8,000-plus acres as a water useful resource mission. Any such enlargement requires new allow functions and full environmental overview.

The U.S. Military Corps of Engineers overview stays open. In a July 2025 letter to Florida Rep. Brian Mast, the Corps raised considerations about seepage dangers and potential results on the EAA Reservoir’s water administration operations. The Corps has no authority to halt the allowing course of.

Underneath an settlement Florida and the Military Corps struck in July 2025, the EAA Reservoir is focused for completion in 2029—5 years forward of the prior deadline. What stays of the Everglades when it opens will rely partially on what occurs subsequent with Phillips & Jordan’s allow.