Did ‘dirty money’ help win ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ contracts?

What we are witnessing, with “Alligator Alcatraz,” is a master class in how “dirty money” works.

As multiple media outlets have reported, several companies involved in the construction and operation of the Everglades detention center have donated to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political action committees. At least two of them have also donated to Attorney General James Uthmeier, a driving force behind the project who’s running in 2026.

Collectively these firms are being paid millions — meaning those campaign contributions were a fantastic investment!

Unfortunately, dirty money usually is.

Among the vendors who just happen to be donors:

• Miami-based CDR Enterprises Inc. and its affiliated companies, CDR Maguire and CDR Health Care Inc. Since 2018 the companies have given political contributions of just under $4 million at the state level, including $500,000 to the “Florida Freedom Fund” — a DeSantis political action committee — earlier this year. The companies have also given well over $1 million to the Republican Party of Florida; and at the federal level, CDR Enterprises in 2023 gave $1 million to Fight Right Inc., a super PAC supporting DeSantis’ presidential campaign.
• SLSCO Ltd., a Texas-based construction company affiliated with John, Todd and William Sullivan. An associated firm, Sullivan Brothers Investments, donated $30,000 to the DeSantis PAC Empower Parents in 2022. In addition, in March William Sullivan gave $3,000 to Uthmeier.
• IRG Global Emergency Management is reportedly a new firm, formed in February, but it’s affiliated with Access Restoration Services US Inc., which in 2022 gave just under $99,980 to DeSantis’ Empower Parents PAC. In March, IRG Global Emergency Management also gave Uthmeier $3,000. Access Restoration Services has given $174,980 to the Republican Party of Florida since 2019.
• Garda World Cash Services is affiliated with GardaWorld, a global security service provider; it gave $5,000 to the Friends of Ron DeSantis PAC in 2018, before the committee changed its name to Empower Parents.

We’re certain this only scratches the surface — and we’ll keep digging.

Check our latest blog post for more, including a look at how Florida taxpayers could wind up on the hook for detention center costs. And if you haven't already, sign the petition telling DeSantis and Uthmeier to pull the plug on this crooked political stunt.

Army Corps says it's got issues with Big Sugar’s rock mine

Big Sugar’s rock mine cruised through the Palm Beach County approval process and handily secured the necessary permits from the Florida DEP. Despite our protests, it looked like the Southland project was ready to rock and roll — maybe even start blasting!

But now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers wants a word.

In response to inquiries from Treasure Coast Congressman Brian Mast, the Corps’ Col. Brandon L. Bowman wrote in a July 2 letter that the Corps “does have concerns about the proposed project’s impacts on Everglades restoration.”

Specifically, Bowman cites the following: 

• Water management: “Since the proposed project would be adjacent to the northern limits of the EAA Reservoir and STA, an analysis of the water management operations of the proposed project is needed to determine the likelihood and magnitude of potential effects to the water management operations of the EAA Reservoir and STA.”
• Seepage: “Given the highly permeable subsurface geologic conditions in the area, seepage from the proposed project could affect the EAA Reservoir and STA.”
• Water availability: “A robust water availability analysis is needed to determine whether the proposed project is compatible with the Central and Southern Florida Project and benefits anticipated from the Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan projects currently under construction.”

There’s also a possibility the rock mine could impact navigable waters of the United States, Bowman wrote; and any attempt to connect the rock mine to the Miami Canal is likely to require permits.

On social media, Mast characterized this as the Army Corps saying “the quiet part out loud — this proposed mine threatens everything we’ve been working toward with the EAA Reservoir. We can’t let political favors sabotage decades of progress.”

We agree, and hope the Corps' concerns will check this rushed and dangerous project.

Amidst everything else, one of the worst bills of the 2025 Legislative session was signed into law by Gov. DeSantis June 30.

"Mitigation banking" is based on the idea that if a developer destroys wetlands, the harm is "mitigated" by creating new wetlands in the same area.

Senate Bill 492, however, permits developers to purchase and use mitigation bank credits generated in a different "service area," meaning they wouldn't have to offset the impacts of their project in the same basin where those impacts occur.

So if a developer wants to build a project impacting wetlands in, say, the Cape Coral area — but there are no mitigation bank credits available from the Little Pine Island Mitigation Bank, which serves the area — he could purchase credits instead from, say, the Bear Creek Mitigation Bank, which serves faraway Bay County in northwest Florida.

Ultimately this law will facilitate more harm to wetlands in areas where they've already been hardest hit by development. Bottom line, it's yet another scheme to keep the great Florida development machine rolling forward, regardless of what that means to our fragile wetlands and all that depends on them.

And it's yet more proof that until we elect public officials who truly value conservation, we're going to see more of the same.

Meanwhile, back at the Lake O ranch...

On Friday, June 27, Lake Okeechobee stood at 10.95 feet.

On Monday, July 7 — just 10 days later — the lake was at 11.41 feet. In other words, it rose nearly half a foot in little over a week.

Unless major storms rip through the region there’s little chance the lake will get high enough to require discharges this fall; indeed, the lake level remains just above the water shortage management band. But this is just a friendly reminder that for all the acute crises demanding our attention — Alligator Alcatraz, Big Sugar’s rock mine — the core concerns affecting the south Florida region remain, and we still need to acquire more land south of the lake in order to Rescue the River of Grass.