Part 46 (1/2)

He tried to teach the difference between wise harvest and reckless butchery, and tried to show why all living things beneath the water's surface, from the regal blue whale to the unglamorous toadfish, have value far beyond the dollar.

It wasn't easy to open this remote new world, or to make outsiders share his awe. In the 19405 Cousteau helped invent the first aqualung, enabling humans to breathe underwater. Thus scuba was born, and soon the oceans had a political const.i.tuency.

Judging by the millions who dive and snorkel for the beauty, and by the millions more who flock to the Seaquarium and other marine exhibits, Cousteau's legacy is phenomenal.

Largely because of his pioneering, most who are lucky enough to see a wild sea turtle don't feel an impulse to spear it. Rather, they feel what they ought to feel, what their children feel: curiosity and wonderment.

Others feel nothing, yet Cousteau never gave up trying to enlighten them. He could have used another 87 years.

Same old song: Greed drowns another species December 28, 1997 It's a tiny wisp of a bird, the Cape Sable seaside sparrow. You probably won't even notice after it's gone.

When the floodgates crank open at a dike west of Miami, millions of gallons of water will surge south toward a remote section of Everglades National Park, home to one of the endangered sparrow's last breeding colonies.

The birds, which nest in gra.s.ses close to the ground, could be flooded out. Many experts believe the colony is unlikely to survive.

Everglades water is watched closely by government agencies. This year the levels are high again because of abundant rain. That's usually good for birds and wildlife, but not always. This year it's definitely not so good for the Cape Sable seaside sparrow.

There's so much water in the Everglades that the folks in charge need to flush the overflow someplace. If they send it to the park's eastern marshes, it might damage some homes that were built there.

So instead they're preparing to send the water farther west, where it could wash out a few hundred olive-colored songbirds, birds so rare that most Floridians have never laid eyes on them.

Pumping, due to start last week, was postponed because of publicity. A hard rain could force the issue, a decision to be made by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the South Florida Water Management District.

Officials in those agencies aren't happy about annihilating the Cape Sable seaside sparrow, but they say they've got few options. They say they're not allowed to flood private property.

That would be property known as the 81/2 Square Mile Area, notable as one of the only sites west of the Everglades levee where houses went up-about 350 of them. Why that was permitted to happen is no mystery. Somebody was trying to make money.

Now, whenever there's heavy rainfall, the residents of the 8 1/2 Square Mile Area get flooded. That's because they live in a swamp, and swamps flood; it literally comes with the territory. And when flooding occurs, the folks who live out there complain. Who wouldn't?

Allowing houses to be built on the wet side of a levee wasn't the most stupid thing Dade County politicians have ever done, but it's close. The price of that stupidity might well be the extermination of another species.

All that overflow water is being aimed away from the misbegotten houses in the 81/2 Square Mile Area, and straight toward the nesting grounds of the Cape Sable seasides. Biologists say this will be the fourth consecutive season that the sparrows cannot breed in the western part of the park, leaving only about 270 there alive.

Other colonies occupy eastern marshes, but because of water diversion practices, those areas will soon be too dry for nesting. Experts believe it won't be long before all the birds die off.

The story is a bleak echo. The last U.S. bird species to become extinct was another Florida sparrow, the dusky seaside. Once thriving in wetlands near the Kennedy s.p.a.ce Center, the dusky was done in by overdevelopment and pesticides.

Everglades National Park is supposed to offer sanctuary from such man-made threats. Indeed, birds living within the park's vast boundaries don't see many bulldozers or crop dusters.

Water is a more inescapable presence. The stuff that could drown out the Cape Sable seaside sparrows will be pumped into the park from conservation areas to the north. Efforts to redistribute the flow more evenly will probably come too late to save the birds.

A study is being done to help decide whether all the houses and lots in the 81/2 Square Mile Area should be repurchased and returned to a natural state. In the meantime, if it comes to a policy choice between soaking a bird and soaking somebody's carpet, the birds will probably lose.

Too bad they can't learn to build their nests in taller gra.s.s.

Too bad we can't learn not to build our subdivisions in swamps.

Small Victories

City gives kids a great reason to give thanks November 26, 1986 Now it will be a good Thanksgiving at 1640 S. Baysh.o.r.e Drive.

Now the kids who live there can stay as long as they need. The Miami City Commission said so Tuesday in an act of decency and wisdom.

The house is owned by CHARLEE, Inc., a nonprofit group that places abused and neglected children in foster home settings. Opened in July 1985, the home on South Baysh.o.r.e operated successfully and without controversy, until a few neighbors complained this year.

They didn't complain so much about the kids; it was the idea of such a place in their neighborhood. They said it wasn't really a foster home, but a therapeutic facility. They said it was a zoning matter.

Three years ago the city said that CHARLEE houses qualified as foster homes, and should be treated the same way. This year a different zoning official gave a less favorable opinion.

The dispute could have shut down the Baysh.o.r.e house and three others in the city. Doris Capri, CHARLEE's executive director, said: ”The majority of our children do not have healthy homes to return to.”

Curiously, the two most prominent opponents of the Baysh.o.r.e home, lawyer A. J. Barranco and County Judge Murray Klein, did not appear at Tuesday's meeting. City Hall filled with other neighbors who felt strongly both ways. An attorney for CHARLEE got up to talk about definitions. The city zoning man got up to disagree. The commissioners wrangled about concepts like ”equitable estoppel.”

While all this was going on, the kids were home doing their school-work. The house parents, Mima and Fadi Aftimos, kept it a secret that Tuesday was the big day. They didn't want the children to worry. The children have been worried most of their lives.

Some of them have been beaten and s.e.xually molested by their real parents. The home on Baysh.o.r.e is the safest they've ever known.

Back at the commission chambers, everybody was agreeing that CHARLEE was a wonderful program, and that the children now living at the Baysh.o.r.e home are model kids. Even Commissioner J. L. Plummer, who wanted the issue taken to a full-blown public hearing, felt obliged to say: ”I gotta tell you, I think the CHARLEE program is doing a terrific job. Let's put that in the record.”

And having put that in the record, Plummer then launched into a rather odd and irrelevant inquisition into the finances at 1640 S. Baysh.o.r.e-how much are the house parents paid ($9,000 each), how much the state pays CHARLEE for each foster child ($53 per day) and so on. This would have been understandable if the city of Miami were paying the bills, but it isn't. The house is owned outright by CHARLEE and every dime of expenses is paid by the state.

The real issue was not zoning, finance, or improper definitions. It was the children-whether or not they belonged.

”These are not juvenile delinquents,” said attorney Gary Brooks.

Said one neighbor, ”Give us some control, that's all we ask.”

Said another: ”Are we, the residents of this area, going to add to their neglect and abuse?...Let's do what is right and just.”

Another man implied that he saw one of the youngsters jump from the roof into their swimming pool.

”My kids do the same thing,” remarked Mayor Xavier Suarez, ”and I don't even have a pool.”

The house on Baysh.o.r.e is only a few blocks down the road from City Hall. One of the commissioners, Rosario Kennedy, actually took the time to visit. She talked with the children and their foster parents, and even their teachers in school.

On Tuesday, after listening to nearly two hours of debate over whether the place should be zoned as a foster home or something else, Kennedy finally just said: ”All I saw was a very neat house with two caring parents...All I saw was a house full of caring and love.”

The vote to reverse the zoning administrator was 4-1, with Plummer dissenting. Afterward Fadi Aftimos couldn't wait to get home to tell the kids they can stay. No one needs to hear it more.

Politicians waking up to the green vote November 5, 1990 Another election season comes to an end, leaving many voters confused, disappointed, unenlightened, uninspired and depressed.

Deeply depressed. One more day of campaign commercials, and we'll all need a dose of Prozac. Bob Martinez is still rhapsodizing about the electric chair, while Lawton Chiles has enlisted the sheriff of Sumter County-Sumter County!-to tell us crime's a darn big problem.

Is there any hope for Florida?