Hey, let's build a concentration camp in the middle of a swamp--then tear it down
An imagined behind-the-scenes look at how Alligator Alcatraz came to be and how it will have to be dismantled
Gov. Ron DeSantis says Alligator Alcatraz “saved taxpayers' money” — a classic example of political doublespeak. In truth, it has been a financial and environmental boondoggle, a publicity stunt that has blown up in his face. Now that it is being shut down, what must the behind-the-scenes discussions looked like? Tropic Press is pleased to share Craig Pittman’s imagined conversation.
By Craig Pittman
News item: Gov. Ron DeSantis confirms that he’s talking to the Trump administration about shutting down his Alligator Alcatraz prison camp because it turns out it’s incredibly expensive to detain immigrants in cages in the Big Cypress National Preserve miles from civilization.
Which led me to dream up this little scenario:
The setting: A beige-walled conference room in the Florida Capitol. Six people in suits sit around a conference table with one empty chair. The white-haired man at the head of the table checks his watch for the fourth time, then picks up a gavel and bangs it on the table.
Chairman: “OK, it’s 10 minutes past, I’m not gonna wait anymore. I’m calling this meeting to order. Because the governor is now ready to shut down Alligator Alcatraz in the Big Cypress National Preserve, this is the first meeting of the Committee on Removing Alligator Alcatraz from the Preserve. Who’s keeping minutes? Judy, can you do that? OK, make a note that we need to find a better acronym.”
Judy, rolling her eyes but picking up a pen: “OK, who’s here and who’s missing?”
Chairman: “We’ve got you from the Department of Environmental Protection — good to see you again, Judy! — as well as Joe, Jack, and Jim from the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, and the South Florida Water Management District. I’m chairman because I represent the Division of Emergency Management, which got stuck paying for this. The person we’re still waiting for is the representative from Attorney General James Uthmeier.”
Water district representative, grumbling: “Which is ironic since this is all his fault.”
Chairman, nodding: “Yep, as per usual. I swear, every time this administration screws up, it’s Uthmeier’s doing. First, he runs the governor’s presidential campaign about as skillfully as the captain of the Titanic maneuvering around an iceberg. Then he comes up with that Hope Florida scheme that derailed the First Lady’s political career. Now we’ve got this ongoing embarrassment. How can the governor claim to be a fiscal conservative when he built a tent city that’s costing the taxpayers $1 million a day?”
Judy from DEP: “Hang on, Mr. Chair. How candid can we be? I’d hate to have some nosy reporter use the Sunshine Law to get hold of these comments.”
Chairman: “Don’t sweat it. You know how little the governor thinks of the Sunshine Law. If anybody requests our records, we’ll make ’em wait until the middle of the next administration. Now, let’s turn to the problem at hand. The camp shutdown starts in June so we need to have a plan ready by then.”
Water district official: “Want me to start? I’ve been out there. It’s a mess.”
Chairman: “How do you mean?”
Water district official: “At least 20 acres of new asphalt was laid in the middle of the swamp. You can see why our scientists have been howling since it opened. Putting a prison camp for more than 1,000 people out there was the worst insult to the Glades since some nitwit turned loose the first Burmese python.”
Careless people
Suddenly the door bursts open and a 20-something bearded man in a rumpled suit rushes in and plops down in the empty chair. He’s Attorney General James Uthmeier’s representative.
“Sorry I’m late! We were getting the boss on Fox News again. So, what have I missed?” he said.
Water district representative: “I was talking about what has to be removed. I mentioned the 20 acres of new asphalt. We’ll need to decide if it’s more destructive to rip all that out or just leave it. We’ll definitely need to remove the miles of new fencing you put out there. And then there’s the lighting.”
Attorney general representative: “What about the lighting? Can’t we just turn it off and walk away?”
Water district employee: “No. You guys installed high-wattage industrial lighting that’s so bright, it’s visible from 20 miles away. Big Cypress was known as a ‘dark sky’ domain until that happened.”
Chairman: “Yeah, you need bright lights powered by 200 diesel-powered generators to run a prison camp. One more reason why it was a bad idea to put this in a dark spot in a nature preserve.”
Water district representative: “Did you guys never think about the consequences of doing what you were doing?”
Attorney general representative inhales loudly: “It’s a swamp. What harm could there be? I mean, the governor himself said there would be ‘zero impact’ on the Everglades.”
The entire room bursts into laughter. When it subsides, the wildlife commission representative says, “That’s about as truthful as our commission chairman claiming our latest bear hunt was dictated by science.”
The chairman sighs. “I dunno. This whole administration reminds me of that line from ‘The Great Gatsby,’ the one about how they were careless people who smashed up things and then left it to others to clean up the mess.”
The smell test
Judy from DEP adjusts her glasses and asks: “Mr. Chair, didn’t your agency complete an environmental assessment?”
Chairman: “Yes, but four months after the site was already up and running.”
Judy: “No way! Why so late?”
Chairman, looking directly at the attorney general representative: “The people who dreamed this thing up were so eager to get it built, they didn’t want to wait for any environmental studies or public hearings. Then when we sought reimbursement of $608 million from the federal Department of Homeland Security, the feds told us the law required us to provide them with an assessment. Too bad Mr. Uthmeier didn’t take care of that little detail in advance.”
Attorney general representative: “Hey, we had an emergency to deal with!”
Chairman, looking skeptical: “Yeah, an emergency to scoop up people like that Palm Beach restaurant owner who’d lived here quietly for 30 years. What was the number I saw? Something like three-fourths of the Alligator Alcatraz detainees had no criminal convictions? It was all a political stunt, and we wasted hundreds of millions of dollars from an emergency fund that was supposed to be used for the next hurricane.”
Wildlife commission representative: “Getting back to the environmental assessment — can we use that to figure out what we need to remove?”
Chairman: “Have you read it? It says there won’t be any impacts to wetlands and the impact to protected wildlife will be negligible.”
Wildlife commission employee: “So, you’re saying it doesn’t pass the smell test.”
Chairman, nodding: “Just like the $92 million worth of Doodie Calls portable toilets we put out there.”
A cleansing ritual
Judy from DEP raises her phone: “Mr. Chairman, I have a suggestion. In the 10 minutes before you started the meeting, I flipped through some of the court filings and interviews with the groups that sued.”
Chairman, looking confused: “Why would you do that?”
Judy: “These people have spent every Sunday for 40 weeks protesting outside Gator Guantánamo — er, I mean Alligator Alcatraz. They’ve seen a lot of what’s gone in and out. They’re a great source of intel about what we’re facing.”
Chairman: “For instance?”
Judy: “Here’s an interview with Eve Samples from Friends of the Everglades. She says that the Texas environmental consultants your agency hired reported we put 38 acres of asphalt out there, not 20. She also talks about chemical spills out there — jet fuel used by the planes, septic waste that sloshed out of the trucks, and so forth. Oh, and here’s a video.”
Video of Samples plays from Judy’s phone: “This political stunt was a failure by every measure — our government failed the Everglades and failed taxpayers, and history will remember.”
Chairman: “Yikes! Who’s that next one? The dark-haired woman?”
Judy: “That’s Jessica Namath. She runs a group called Floridians for Public Lands. Here, let me play you her interview: ‘Aside from dismantling what we see above ground, one of my biggest concerns is the septic system they’ll need to remove. A lot of what we saw trucked in early on has been buried underground. According to family members, once detainees were allowed to shower, the water smelled like well water, so they presumably also drilled a well or wells.’”
Chairman, sighing: “Water wells and a septic system? Wow, this place is MUCH more intrusive than just some tents. What’s that photo she’s pointing to?”
Water district representative: “I recognize it. That truck is carrying four water storage tanks.”
Judy: “Right. Namath says they saw the truck hauling them through the front gate, but they’re no longer visible above ground. Presumably they’re now buried underground.”
Chairman: “Good Lord! How about that woman in the straw hat? Who’s she?”
Judy: “That’s Betty Osceola, an elder in the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians. They have a village next door to the prison, so she’s been out protesting more than anyone. She says she saw a lot of gravel fill being trucked in, probably to be poured into the wetlands to stabilize the ground. And there are towers so the guards would have cell service.”
Chairman: “Dang! Next, you’ll tell me we leased some of it out as affordable housing.” He pauses for a laugh, doesn’t get one.
Judy: “Betty Osceola says there are sacred cultural sites accessible only by crossing the prison site, which they can no longer cross. Once the prison’s cleared away, she said the tribe needs to perform a cleansing ritual.”
Chairman: “I feel like I need a cleansing ritual myself after hearing all this.” He looks closely at the attorney general representative, who appears to be squirming in his seat. “Something the matter?”
Attorney general representative: “Well, to be honest, this is all kind of MY fault.”
I started a joke
Chairman: “Well, we know Mr. Uthmeier was the one who sold the governor on this and became the public face of it. He even went on a podcast and claimed it would be a low-cost alternative to an actual prison, which shows how clueless he is.”
Wildlife commission employee: “Oh yeah, the same podcaster was later pushing the official Alligator Alcatraz merchandise sold by the Republican Party of Florida. There’s been some speculation that that was the whole point, to sacrifice the Glades as a fundraiser for the GOP.”
Attorney general representative slumps in his chair. “Yeah, I’ve been trying to avoid it, but I guess I need to confess. This was my idea. But I didn’t mean it.”
Water district representative, eyes widening; “What the hell did you do?”
Attorney general representative: “You know that song, ‘I Started a Joke’?”
Judy: “The one by the Bee Gees? I loooove that song.”
Attorney general representative: “Well, that’s what happened. We were in a meeting and somebody brought up the fact that 75% of Florida prisons have no air conditioning and the guards are upset about working in all that heat. And I said, just as a joke, that we should build our next prison in the Everglades and hire the gators as the guards, because they wouldn’t complain.”
Agriculture employee: “Holy cow!”
Chairman shakes his head: “The ironic thing is that Alligator Alcatraz DOES have air-conditioning. It’s not very good, but it’s better than nothing.”
Judy, looking appalled: “Didn’t you tell them you weren’t serious?”
Attorney general representative, looking ashamed: “Before I could say anything else, the boss’s eyes began to twitch and he got a big smile on his face and shouted, ‘That’s IT! The governor will LOVE it!’ and he ran out of the room. There was nothing I could do to stop him.”
Just then, the chairman’s phone chimes. He pulls it out, reads the message, then announces to the room: “Bad news. That was from the governor. Just as the contracts for building Alligator Alcatraz went to people who donated to his campaign, so he wants us to make sure that the contracts for pulling it out go to his contributors too.”
Judy puts down her pen: “So, I guess we’re looking at a 20-year project, just like the full Everglades restoration.”
Craig Pittman is a native Floridian. In 30 years at the Tampa Bay Times, he won numerous state and national awards for his environmental reporting. He is the author of six books. In 2020 the Florida Heritage Book Festival named him a Florida Literary Legend. Craig is co-host of the "Welcome to Florida" podcast. He lives in St. Petersburg with his wife and children.
Florida Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. This story is republished with their permission. To support Florida Phoenix, click here:
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AA is so much worse a debacle than anyone imagined. Ugh. J.C., please share this to social media as you can.
When a greedy bigot (Trump) makes plans for anything, beware. Every Trump endeavor, witnessed by voters , lacks detailed planning, Management details are given to lawyers and con men to find personal profit.