Eta flooding chance for Miami-Dade’s Levine Cava to take the plunge, lead on climate changes | Editorial

If there are still any climate-change deniers left in South Florida, Tropical Storm Eta made a persuasive case that the region’s future will be a soggy one.

Even thought climate change and sea-level rise are not solely to blame for the prodigious amount of knee-deep flooding South Florida neighborhoods experienced, they are a warning that our water-management infrastructure remains inadequate to handle what’s coming our way over the next decades.

In Miami-Dade, the newly elected county mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, told the Editorial Board that she will bring both a local and regional focus to these pressing issues. She’s well-positioned to do so, having been until recently, the chair of the South Florida Regional Planning Council, where counties work collaboratively to address the big challenges that affect them all. Sea-level rise and aging infrastructure are chief among those challenges.

‘Perfect storm’

For almost a week now, much of South Florida has been at the center of a perfect storm — pun unavoidable — of relentless rains, already wet ground and the challenge of flood control in the age of sea-level rise.

First, the area’s typical dry season that should have started in October never happened. Instead, the rains came. Even a sponge can only hold so much water. Same thing with the ground. Second, storm surge prevented all that water from quickly draining into the ocean as usual. Third, sea-level rise is taxing flood-management systems in the region, making it harder to provide drainage.

“We have to work on infrastructure projects — with the Army Corps; addressing septic to sewer; building, and building appropriately,” Levine Cava told the Editorial Board. “We did a lot of pumping to take water off the land, but it took pollutants with it. We have to improve filtration systems.”

Those are a lot of costly boxes to check. But if Miami-Dade and the rest of South Florida are to have a future, there needs to be a serious, concrete process to develop the kind of plans that will bring in the federal funds to help make them happen. A plan is key.

Stormwater woes

Eta’s deluge showed made clear that stormwater management is key, and should be of immediate concern. Yes, the South Florida Water Management District’s systems worked — to a degree — but were at times outdone by the sheer amount of rainfall. Of course, it doesn’t take a tropical storm to flood neighborhoods throughout the region. In fact, much of it is so-called “sunny-day flooding.”

We hope Levine Cava takes the lead in beginning to dismantle the silos that still prevent stormwater management from being tackled more comprehensively.

County experts lament that several jurisdictions have their own stormwater utilities, each charging their own fees. Water doesn’t care where political and municipal boundaries are drawn. And though there is some communication among entities, experts say, there needs to be more large-scale intergovernmental collaboration.

With Levine Cava solidly on board on the need to aggressively confront infrastructure, septic tanks and sea-level rise, these are issues where the new county mayor can most immediately get her feet wet as a leader. (Pun inevitable.)