This small waterfront community is making a statement on protecting Biscayne Bay

During a recent virtual town hall meeting, North Bay Village officials joined a group of scientists and experts to discuss ways to protect Biscayne Bay.

Commissioner Rachel Streitfeld said that the fish kill over the summer made her aware of just how critically the bay’s climate is changing.

“Though we are a very small community as North Bay Village,” she said, “we have a very powerful voice on the stage of Miami-Dade County, and we have committed ourselves to utilizing that voice in a number of different ways.”

Panelists included Esber Andiroglu, associate professor of practice in the department of civil, architectural & environmental engineering at the University of Miami. Andiroglu, who is involved in a series of research projects that focus on the resiliency of coastal structures, said North Bay Village is unique because it is a small, man-made island.

He said this makes it a perfect location to demonstrate just how interdisciplinary the challenge of rising sea levels is.

“Engineers alone can’t do it, architects alone can’t do it, economists alone can’t do it, artists alone can’t do it, but we can do it altogether because we all bring in a different perspective,” Andiroglu said in an interview before the meeting.

He said he started working with island officials about two years ago through one of his team’s community outreach projects. Andiroglu said he hopes to use this connection to establish a foundation for his work, which he can later expand to municipalities around the world.

This is what Mayor Brent Latham said he wants for his city, too. Latham encouraged the panelists to share their expertise on the matter — and to not hold back on potential solutions.

“Give us your craziest ideas as far as what can be done in resiliency in Biscayne Bay and we will make it happen if it’s within our power,” Latham said.

Streitfeld said, so far, the city has been successful in leading by example. North Bay Village was the first city in Miami-Dade County to pass the Florida Friendly Fertilizer ordinance, she said. It also recently banned single-use plastic and enforced an ordinance on pollution caused by construction sites.

Former Biscayne Bay Task Force Chair Irela Bagué, whose work is being used as a guideline for environmental legislation within the city, said the island’s leadership is evident.

“You guys have really set the stage for what can be done at the local level,” Bagué said. “You really helped to elevate the issue countywide, and I really appreciate that because it makes our work and our report move forward on many levels.”

Still, the city’s Sustainability and Resiliency Task Force chair, Denise O’Brien, said there is a long way to go. She said more needs to be done about failing septic tanks, aged infrastructure and pollution flowing from canals to the bay.

She said they are working on a plan to combat storm surge, and they want to create a public-private partnership that grants financial aid to homeowners who need to revamp their seawalls.The work can’t be done, however, unless everyone from the local to the federal level is involved, Latham said.

Among the panelists were officials from the Miami-Dade County Office of Resilience and the South Florida Water Management District.

But Latham said they need even more support.

“From North Bay Village, if you look out at the water, you can see a dozen other municipalities — and all of these municipalities share the water,” Latham said. “The water doesn’t understand its boundaries, and so we need the other municipalities to work on what we’re working on so we can get results.”

This story was originally published December 19, 2020 at 6:00 AM.