FORT LAUDERDALE — The mangrove trees and pines that shielded the River Oaks neighborhood from a nearby shipyard are gone forever.
The city-hired drainage contractor that chopped them down also dumped gravel into a canal that runs through River Oaks and discharged water into both the canal and a nearby wetland preserve last year, increasing turbidity above allowable limits, county officials say.
For that, Broward County has fined Ric-Man Construction and Fort Lauderdale $175,450.
The city and contractor are splitting the fine, with Fort Lauderdale paying $78,808 and Ric-Man paying $96,642.
Ric-Man was tapped to oversee a $50 million drainage project in River Oaks and nearby Edgewood. The neighborhoods are among 25 low-lying areas in Fort Lauderdale slated to get drainage upgrades to help protect against flooding.
The missing trees are a sore spot for the residents of River Oaks, says Ted Inserra, the neighborhood’s association president.
“They were between 10 and 20 feet high,” Inserra said. “Now that they’ve been taken out, we can hear the noise coming from the shipyard. They’re doing major work over there on those superyachts. They’re not changing spark plugs. They’re painting and sanding and grinding.”
It was Inserra and his neighbors who alerted the county, saying they saw crews dumping gravel into the canal that runs parallel to Coconut Drive.
“We just knew something wasn’t right,” Inserra said. “And we were proven right.”
A Ric-Man official declined to comment Monday, referring questions to the city.
During a recent meeting, Public Works Director Alan Dodd said the city thought Ric-Man made the right move on certain actions they took.
“However, the county saw it differently in terms of regulations,” Dodd said.
The county’s Environmental Permitting Division cited Fort Lauderdale after Ric-Man dumped gravel into a canal west of Coconut Drive and removed mangroves from an area county officials say was beyond what was allowed under their permit.
“Mangroves are usually nursery areas for the fish,” said Carlos Adorisio, assistant director of Broward County’s Environmental Permitting Division. “They lay their eggs there.”
To make up for taking out the mangroves, $4,800 in credits were paid toward wetlands restoration outside the county in the Everglades Mitigation Bank near Homestead.
Fort Lauderdale did obtain a modified permit from the county in March 2024, long after the trees were removed — a customary practice in cases where the action cannot be undone and a fine is paid.
In May 2021, Broward County issued a permit authorizing the removal of 50 feet of mangroves from the canal bank on the north side of Southwest 20 Street and 50 feet on the south side. But the county says the city’s contractor removed 80 feet of mangroves on the north side, triggering the notice of violation.
The loss of those additional mangroves was included in the penalty calculations, a county official said.
To make up for it, the city’s contractor took out fewer mangroves on the south side than they were authorized to under the permit. The city argues that, in the end, fewer mangroves were removed overall. As a result, no additional mitigation was required.
Fort Lauderdale was also cited for unauthorized discharges into the River Oaks wetland preserve at 2117 SW 19th Ave.
When water is discharged into another body of water, it can stir up large deposits of silt and sediment, giving the water a cloudy or milky appearance known as turbidity. If turbidity levels are high, both plant and aquatic life can suffer and potentially die.
“When the water is turbid, oxygen levels go down,” Adorisio said. “That could kill fish and other animals.”
The county says it is requiring the city to remediate the preserve to get it back to its previous condition.
The mistakes were unfortunate, said Commissioner Warren Sturman, whose district includes River Oaks.
“My concern is that we have a robust system of checks and balances to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Sturman told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. “Every time we pay a fine, that’s money that could have gone toward drainage infrastructure.”
Inserra said he thinks the fine should have been higher for destroying what was once a beautiful area of the neighborhood.
Since March, Inserra says he has planted at least 40 mangrove saplings along the canal bank.
“I’m hoping the city doesn’t rip them out,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “They should be thanking me for planting those trees. All the city did was plant some little shrubs along the rocks on the south end of the canal.”
Fort Lauderdale officials are working on a plan to plant larger trees and vegetation along the southern banks of the canal where the mangroves and exotic trees were removed, Dodd said.
But the city might end up having to remove the mangroves as they grow, Dodd warned.
The canal provides for drainage of stormwater from the neighborhood, he explained. Planting more mangroves can impede drainage and increase the future risk of flooding. If removal is needed as the mangroves grow, the city will need to obtain a permit from Broward County and also foot the bill for additional mitigation.
In the meantime, Fort Lauderdale is increasing Construction Engineering and Inspection services to provide greater on-site quality assurance and verify Ric-Man’s quality control procedures are adequate during future work.
“We have learned a lot of lessons on this,” Dodd said.
Clarification: This news article was updated to make clear how the issue was resolved.
Susannah Bryan can be reached at sbryan@sunsentinel.com. Follow me on X @Susannah_Bryan
