County uprooting beloved -- and reviled -- Australian pine trees along Rickenbacker Causeway
 
BY CURTIS MORGAN
cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com
The Australian pines lining Rickenbacker Causeway have been a draw for generations, their shade cooling picnickers and board sailors, lovers and joggers.

Miami-Dade County has begun bulldozing them all -- dozens of the stately trees from the toll booth to the Miami Seaquarium -- as part of a $6.8 million project to restore eroding shoreline and prevent storm runoff from pouring directly into Biscayne Bay.

Many regular travelers along one of Miami's most scenic stretches are, putting it politely, peeved.

``It's a rape of the beach,' said Tom Darden, a retired dentist who lives in Coconut Grove and regularly runs with his wife, Buzzy, on the causeway linking Miami to Virginia Key. ``The state of Florida has a vendetta against the Australian pine.'

State and federal environmental and agriculture agencies do have a vendetta -- though they prefer to call it a ``pest-plant management plan' -- against a tree officially banned and classified as a noxious invasive weed. But they acknowledge that when it comes to the two-decade effort to eradicate Australian pines, there are a lot of tree huggers out there.

Bulldoze Brazilian peppers, nobody peeps. Mulch a melaleuca forest, nobody minds. Start chain sawing Australian pines and invariably you've got a battle on your hands. It's happened at John U. Lloyd Beach State Park in Hollywood, at Fort Zachary Taylor in Key West, on Sanibel Island and Miami Springs and dozens of other places.

``It's a tough one,' said National Park Service Tony Pernas, who is writing the Australian pine management plan for the Florida Exotic Pest Plant Council. The council ranks casuarina equisetifolia, which loosely translates to horsetail tree, among the worst group of invasives. Scientists say the tree, which isn't really a pine, can take over beaches and coastline, driving out native foliage and making nesting difficult for rare species such as the North American crocodile and sea turtles.

``The Australian Pine, because of its size and the fact it looks like a pine tree, often becomes controversial,' he said.

That has quickly proved true with the Rickenbacker work, which began last week.

Delfin Molins, spokesman for the county's Public Works Department, said the project, funded by a loan from a state road program and toll booth revenues, had been planned since 1999. The agency placed legal ads about it in The Miami Herald.

The shoreline from Hobie Beach to Virginia Key Beach has eroded so much in spots over the years that roads and parking areas are at risk of damage, he said. The county blames the pines, saying the large roots don't hold sand like native plants. The trees, with shallow roots, also often topple during hurricanes, as 130 of them did during Wilma in 2005, leaving the popular exercise path impassable for months.

Once the pines are removed, rocky sediment and debris will be dredged along the shoreline, then ``quality' beach sand trucked in. Detention areas will be dug to hold storm water. Lime rock riprap boulders also will be added in some spots to protect mangroves and stabilize the beach.

At the end of a project expected to take a year, Molins said the county intends to replant native canopy trees such as sea grape and gumbo-limbo, as well as palms, shrubs and ground cover. In addition, the parking area will be redone with pavers and walkways and bikeways repoured with concrete.

Molins said the county has gotten some calls on the work, both pro and con.

``The problem is people don't understand the invasiveness of these species,' he said.

Critics don't buy the attacks on a tree introduced to South Florida in the 1890s by railroad tycoon Henry Flagler, as ornamentals along his tracks and windbreaks for hotels.

Diego Hernandez, a salesman from South Miami gearing up for a sail, pointed to the effort to remove them from Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Recreation Area after Hurricane Andrew and replant natives.

``Those trees were the best thing about the place. It's hot as hell out there now,' he said. ``Why would they make that mistake again?'

Shawn Beightol, a science teacher at teacher at Michael Krop Senior, said he didn't understand why a county forced to whack $450 million from its budget and lay off 950 people would be spending millions to remove trees that have been there for decades.

``Couldn't they use that money for more raises?' cracked Beightol, while sipping on a beer in the shade of the trees after a day of bike riding with his girlfriend.

Beightol also questioned how trees on a causeway would pose an invasive threat. ``If this were the middle of the Everglades, I'd understand,' he said.

Pernas, who coordinates the park service's exotic plant management team in Florida and the Caribbean, has heard that argument before. But pines have proved to be problems just about everywhere, he said. Water managers once planted them along canals to prevent erosion, but hurricanes turned them into dams of debris that only worsened flooding, he said.

Pernas understands the appeal of the pines to the public. Not only are they shady, they rustle sweetly in the breeze and drop needles that block brush from growing, creating open area. Great for a stroll, he said, but sterile ground cover bad for native wildlife and plants.

``They look like they're not causing any problems,' he said. ``But those seeds float and they float great distances. They become established in a lot of places they shouldn't be.'

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