Is the kind of sprawl under way around Corkscrew Swamp an intelligent swap for wetlands that sustain the rich, complex ecosystems of the western Everglades, protect people and property, provide drinking water, and without which the future of wood storks and panthers unquestionably will be jeopardized? “How does your company justify wetlands destruction in endangered species habitat for golf?” I asked Ronto spokesman Bryan Farrar in an e-mail, after he’d requested that I put my questions in writing. I didn’t get a response.

The Army Corps of Engineers issues dredge-and-fill permits under Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, tossing them out like confetti. But supposedly a developer must “mitigate” the damage. One way he can do this is by creating replacement wetlands, definitely possible but rarely accomplished. Wetlands created by engineers and bureaucrats usually turn out to be mere water-retention basins. A developer may also purchase credits from a “mitigation bank” that uses his money to create wetlands (which, again, rarely have genuine wetland functions) or to enhance, restore, or preserve existing wetlands. But “enhancement,” at least when it means deepening, can be worse than doing nothing, and while restoration and preservation are fine, why should a developer get to compensate for wetlands he destroys by restoring or preserving wetlands that are supposed to be protected by law?

A draft Fish and Wildlife Service report destined for suppression under the Bush administration but leaked to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in 2001, revealed that during the Clinton years the service had been dismayed by the Corps’ dereliction in protecting the western Everglades. It cited 24 wetlands-destruction permits issued between 1995 and 2000 affecting 1,790 acres, and 15 pending permits affecting 1,406 acres. Charged the service: “The tremendous development pressure and lack of a rigorous regulatory program are resulting in significant direct, indirect, and cumulative fish and wildlife resource losses and are rapidly precluding opportunities for conservation, resource management, and restoration in southwest Florida.” The service had made the Corps aware of these concerns and had been rebuffed.

Most Corps “mitigation” is make-believe. For example, in the 1990s the agency permitted the destruction of 4,000 acres of wetlands in the western Everglades while ordering about 500 acres of mitigation. Without genuine wetlands to absorb floodwater and with all the new asphalt and cement, a rainstorm in 1995 forced at least 1,000 people to evacuate their homes. The state and federal governments were then obliged to spend $30 million moving people and demolishing their ruined dwellings. As a result, Lee County wrote a watershed management plan calling for protection of natural flow ways like the Cocohatchee Slough and recommending that development be kept out of floodplains. But the Mirasol, Parklands, and Saturnia Falls projects, just over the line in Collier County, will further develop the floodplain and further constrict the Cocohatchee Slough.

Typically fraudulent is the mitigation required of IM Collier Joint Venture for its planned 1,713-acre Mirasol development in what is some of the state’s best wood stork and panther habitat. To, supposedly, compensate for the 645 acres of wetlands it will destroy, the firm must buy and protect 176 acres and “preserve and restore” 940 on-site (mostly wet) acres, the wildlife value of which will be sharply reduced by all the development and traffic. The ultimate absurdity is that the developer gets to “restore” the on-site acreage by removing alien melaleuca trees.

Like any invasive exotic, melaleuca compromises wildlife habitat, but it doesn’t come close to destroying it. Moreover, you don’t have to be a developer to take it out. I asked Brad Cornell, policy advocate for Audubon of Florida and the Collier County Audubon Society, for an assessment of mitigation by melaleuca extraction.

Cornell—who, like all good naturalists, detests melaleuca outside its native range—cited multiple studies by eminent scientists demonstrating the high value of melaleuca-infested wetlands. “They recharge aquifers, store floodwaters, and cleanse drinking water just as well as melaleuca-free wetlands,” he said. “They also continue to grow abundant fish and other aquatic prey for wood storks and wading birds. The agencies [the Corps, the Fish and Wildlife Service, and the South Florida Water Management District] have calculated mitigation based on presumed function rather than acreage. So there’s this no-net-loss lie being perpetrated, which has destroyed thousands and thousands of acres of wetlands. With mitigation by melaleuca removal, you foreclose the opportunity to ever restore those developed wetlands. It’s a ridiculous, perverted policy by which developers can destroy wetlands with impunity.”