The Miccosukee Tribe wants to be the new protector of the so-called ”Alligator Alcatraz” site, calling Friday on Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to give it the territory to conserve.
But there’s a problem.
The DeSantis administration, which controversially seized the land last summer, still hasn’t given it back to the county, even after the state cleared out the lockup’s detainees and declared the center closed for business.
This means Miami can’t begin to sell or transfer the Everglades land to a conservator, as planned — at least not yet.
“The State has not returned the land to the County and has provided no timeline for doing so,” Dianne Fernandez, Cava’s deputy director of communications, told the Phoenix in an email. She provided a letter Cava sent Monday to the governor, asking DeSantis to coordinate the site’s “orderly transition” back to Miami-Dade.
The governor’s office referred the Phoenix to the Florida Division of Emergency Management, the agency in charge of “Alligator Alcatraz” operations, which has not responded to a request for comment.
“Alligator Alcatraz” was hastily built last summer atop the Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, a 5,120-acre plot deep within the Everglades complete with a 10,000-foot runway for pilots learning to fly. Although owned by Miami-Dade County — until it was temporarily commandeered last June — the airport pays taxes to Collier County.
The county estimates its value at $20 million. Cava, however, had estimated in early conversations with state government before construction that the plot would be worth closer to $190 million. State officials disagreed, and simply seized the land under emergency declaration instead of paying out Cava’s hefty request.
Remarkably, after a year of bitter debate between politicos and activists over the facility and its alleged wrongdoings — although none have been proven in court — the one point many agree on appears to be the site’s future as an environmental safe haven.
Attorney General James Uthmeier, the mastermind behind the facility, and Cava both have advocated to environmentally protect the land. After DeSantis announced the facility’s shuttering, Cava declared her plan to sell or transfer the site to an environmental conservator, such as the National Park Service.
One interested buyer is the Miccosukee Tribe, its reservation abutting “Alligator Alcatraz” and an active environmental opponent of the facility’s construction and operation. The tribe joined most of the legal onslaught against the state for its alleged environmental harms caused by the facility.
“Miami-Dade County has title to the landscape, but all of Florida belongs to the indigenous people, regardless of what name and county you want to give to it,” tribe member Betty Osceola said during a Friday press conference. She insisted tribe members would devote “110%” to preserving the land if it were theirs.
“I encourage the mayor’s office to have those conversations with the Miccosukee Tribe to see how [a transfer] could happen,” she said.
The mayor’s office did not respond to questions about whether aides have spoken with the Miccosukees or any other buyer.
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