Defenders of the Everglades

Larry Teply was a law student at the University of Florida in 1971 when he and his late roommate wrote a law review article about the then-current controversy over the Jetport. It was published in the University of Miami Law Review and serves as one of the best historical documents of that time on the subject. 

 In the 1960s, plans to build the world’s largest jetport were underway. Environmentalists like Marjory Stoneman Douglas pushed back. She founded the organization Friends of the Everglades with the sole purpose of stopping construction. Her group and others put so much pressure on local, state, and federal governments that construction was stopped, and the jetport plans were scrapped. Now, on the same runway, there are rows of tents and temporary structures. It’s an immigration detention center the state dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”Environmental groups, including the one Douglas started to close the jetport are suing to shut it down. Lawyers are citing the same laws put in place after the jetport. We look back 60 years ago and talk to those who thought this battle was fought and won.