Tag: Port Everglades

2015:Chief of Army Corps of Engineers Approves Port Everglades, Fla. Expansion (The Details)

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Approved tentative plan for the widening and deepening of port channels and turning basin.
Approved tentative plan for the widening and deepening of port channels and turning basin

The legend shows the details of the plan, which you should study carefully.  Although none of the expansion will be paid for by imposing increased property taxes on Broward County property owners, one should take heed of the amount of mangrove land to be eliminated to accommodate Port expansion in the light blue rectangle to the west (left). Under federal law, the Port must acquire an equivalent amount of mangrove lands  to mitigate the destruction of environmentally sensitive lands.

Under the plan, the Outer Entrance Channel will be lengthened and widened.  The box in purple called the Widener will increase the size of the turning basin for longer ships required worldwide by the Panama Canal expansion for some of the longest, widest, and heaviest cargo vessels in the World.the forest green box indicating the Inner Entrance Channels will be widened and deepened for traffic flowing to and  from the south for loading or offloading.

The last two boxes in light green are increase space for Notches for Turning and Berthing or just Turning.  The remainder of the colored boxes and lines are as described.  Study them carefully. The Plan represents a the Port’s future, a major enterprise operated by Broward County, Florida.

The Chief of Engineers recommends Port Everglades, Fla. expansion on Friday, June 26, 2015

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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).

Approved tentative plan for the widening and deepening of port channels and turning basin.
Approved tentative plan for the widening and deepening of port channels and turning basin.i

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.

Lake Mabel (Port Everglades) Named by Surveyor for Son’s Girlfriend (1870)

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Lake Mabel
Lake Mabel (Port Everglades) taken in 1925 before the incorporation of the port with the Atlantic Ocean in the foreground. Courtesy, Broward County, Fla.

In his 1870 Government Map of this section, Surveyor General Marcellus Williams named this feature Lake Mabel after Mabel, fiancee’ of James White. White and Mabel accompanied the surveying party along with Williams’s son, Arthur T. Williams.

The Intracoastal Waterway runs through the middle of the Lake, paralleling the east coast of Florida from what had been named the New River Sound on both sides of the inlet.

Arthur T. Williams became quite famous throughout the State, accumulating large parcels of land with and without his partner, James A. Harris. The name Lake Mabel is confirmed in the register of the Board of U.S. Geographic Names.

In the background, one can see the outlines of the making of the City of Fort Lauderdale’s new municipal airport, which was later named the Merle Fogg Airport, after a young aviator (Fogg) crashed and died west of West Palm Beach with his student at the controls. After World War II transformed Fogg Field into Naval Air Station (Fort Lauderdale), a large training base for Navy aviators, the Navy turned over the Airport to Broward County. The airport is now the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.