On Friday, June 26, 2015, the the Chief of Engineers of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recommended to Congress the expansion of Port Everglades, Fla., as requested by the Broward County Commission.
Broward County has now been given the ‘green light’ to allow the Port to compete with many of the ports on the Atlantic coast for cargo business transiting through the expanded Panama Canal, expected to permit the transit of large mega-cargo ships plying the Seven Seas when construction is complete. A few status videos may be found in the posts throughout this website. Few ports on the Atlantic coast are expected to have the capacity to berth the large mega-cargo ships of the new millennium. Jacksonville has declined to expand its port to compete for this new business (Jaxport to WGC, April 3, 2015).
There are significant barriers the County must overcome before breaking ground on the project. One controversial obstacle is the required destruction of a number of acres of mangrove plantations to accommodate the expansion. Under federal law, the Port will be required to mitigate the destruction by planting a substantial number of acres of mangroves in other areas of the County.
Plans call for a partnership between Broward County, Fla., and the Army Corps of Engineers that may last for several decades. Although county property taxes might ordinarily increase, the project will not increase local property taxes. The improvements will be paid for by users of the port and anticipated federal grants.
Florida’s Big Dig 