Biscayne National Park is a national park of the United States located south of Miami, Florida, in Miami-Dade County. The park preserves Biscayne Bay and its offshore barrier reefs. The shore of the bay is the location of an extensive mangrove forest. The park covers , of which are on land. It includes Elliott Key, the park's largest island and northernmost of the true Florida Keys, formed from fossilized coral reef. The islands farther north in the park are transitional islands of coral and sand. The offshore portion of the park includes the northernmost region of the Florida Reef, one of the largest coral reefs in the world.
Biscayne National Park protects four distinct ecosystems: part of the Florida mangroves along the shoreline, the shallow waters of Biscayne Bay, the coral limestone keys, and the offshore Florida Reef. The shoreline swamps of the mainland and island margins provide a nursery for larval and juvenile fish, molluscs, and crustaceans. The bay waters harbor immature and adult fish, seagrass beds, sponges, soft corals, and manatees. The keys are covered with tropical vegetation including endangered cacti and palms, and their beaches provide nesting grounds for endangered sea turtles. Offshore reefs and waters harbor more than 200 species of fish, pelagic birds, whales, and hard corals. Sixteen endangered species including Schaus' swallowtail butterflies, smalltooth sawfish, manatees, and green and hawksbill sea turtles may be observed in the park. Biscayne also has a small population of threatened American crocodiles and a few American alligators.
The people of the Glades culture inhabited the Biscayne Bay region as early as 10,000 years ago before rising sea levels filled the bay. The Tequesta people occupied the islands and shoreline from about 4,000 years before the present to the 16th century, when the Spanish took possession of Florida. Reefs claimed ships from Spanish times through the 20th century, with more than 40 documented wrecks within the park's boundaries. While the park's islands were farmed during the 19th and early 20th centuries, their rocky soil and periodic hurricanes made agriculture difficult to sustain.
In the early 20th century the islands became secluded destinations for wealthy Miamians who built getaway homes and social clubs. Mark C. Honeywell's guesthouse on Boca Chita Key that featured a mock lighthouse was the area's most elaborate private retreat. The Cocolobo Cay Club was at various times owned by Miami developer Carl G. Fisher, yachtsman Garfield Wood, and President Richard Nixon's friend Bebe Rebozo, and was visited by four United States presidents. In 1972, Rebozo encouraged Richard Nixon to fire then-National Park Service director George Hartzog in retaliation for receiving "a ticket from a park ranger in Biscayne National Park for tying his boat illegally to an NPS administrative dock there." Nixon fired Hartzog in December 1972, despite attempts by Secretary of the Interior Rogers Morton to talk the president out of his decision. Nixon opted to replace Hartzog with his office's head of travel arrangement Ron Walker, an "unqualified appointment" who openly admitted "that he did not know the difference between the National Park Service and the Boy Scouts." Rebozo's influence on Nixon's firing of Hartzog has also been noted in Dr. Gil Lusk's 2019 book National Parks: Our Living National Treasures and A Conservative Environmentalist: The Life and Career of Frank Masland Jr. Former National Park Service director Jonathan B. Jarvis has credited Rebozo with indirectly bringing about an overly-politicized era of the Parks program administration that still exists to the present, wherein NPS directors are expected to resign with the election of each new president.
The amphibious community of Stiltsville, established in the 1930s in the shoals of northern Biscayne Bay, took advantage of its remoteness from land to offer offshore gambling and alcohol during Prohibition. After the Cuban Revolution of 1959, the Central Intelligence Agency and Cuban exile groups used Elliott Key as a training ground for infiltrators into Fidel Castro's Cuba.
Originally proposed for inclusion in Everglades National Park, Biscayne Bay was removed from the proposed park to ensure Everglades' establishment. The area remained undeveloped until the 1960s, when a series of proposals were made to develop the keys in the manner of Miami Beach, and to construct a deepwater seaport for bulk cargo, along with refinery and petrochemical facilities on the mainland shore of Biscayne Bay. Through the 1960s and 1970s, two fossil-fueled power plants and two nuclear power plants were built on the bay shores. A backlash against development led to the 1968 designation of Biscayne National Monument. The preserved area was expanded by its 1980 re-designation as Biscayne National Park. The park is heavily used by boaters, and apart from the park's visitor center on the mainland and a jetty at Black Point Marina, its land and sea areas are accessible only by boat.
Geography
Biscayne National Park comprises in Miami-Dade County in southeast Florida. Extending from just south of Key Biscayne southward to just north of Key Largo, most of the park is open water, although there are 42 islands within the park boundaries including Soldier Key, the Ragged Keys, Sands Key, Elliott Key, Totten Key and Old Rhodes Key, as well as smaller islands that form the northernmost extension of the Florida Keys. The Safety Valve, a wide shallow opening in the island chain, between the Ragged Keys and Key Biscayne just north of the park's boundary, allows storm surge water to flow out of the bay after the passage of tropical storms. The park's eastern boundary is the ten-fathom line () of water depth in the Atlantic Ocean on the Florida Reef. The park's western boundary is a fringe of property on the mainland, extending a few hundred meters inland between Cutler Ridge and Mangrove Point. The only direct mainland access to the park is at the Convoy Point Visitor Center, adjacent to the park headquarters. The southwestern boundary adjoins the Turkey Point Nuclear Generating Station and its system of cooling canals.
The southern portion of Biscayne Bay extends between Elliott Key and the mainland, transited by the Intracoastal Waterway. The park abuts the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary on the east and south sides of the park and John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park to the south. Only of the park's area are on land, with the offshore keys comprising and mainland mangrove swamps account for the remaining . As an extension of the Everglades ecosystem, much of the park was originally proposed to be included in Everglades National Park, but was excluded to obtain a consensus for the establishment of the Everglades park in 1947.Grunwald, p. 214
Geology
Biscayne Bay marks the southernmost extent of the Atlantic barrier islands, represented by Key Biscayne and the northernmost extent of the Florida Keys at Elliott Key. The keys are distinguished from the barrier islands by the coral limestone that extends to the islands' surface under a thin veneer of topsoil, while the barrier islands are dominated by wave-deposited sands that cover most of the limestones.Bryan et al., p. 288 Biscayne Bay lies between low ridges of oolitic Miami Limestone on the west, forming Cutler Ridge and the coral-based Key Largo limestone that underlies Elliott Key and the keys to the south. The Miami limestone was deposited in turbulent lagoon waters.
The Key Largo Limestone is a fossilized coral reef formed during the Sangamonian Stage of about 75,000 to 125,000 years ago. The Miami Formation achieved its present form somewhat later, during a glacial period in which fresh water consolidated and cemented the lagoon deposits.Bryan et al., pp. 287–290 The Key Largo Limestone is a coarse stone formed from stony corals, between in thickness.Bryan et al., p. 298 As a consequence of their origins as reefs, the beaches of Elliott Key and Old Rhodes Key are rocky. Significant sandy beaches are found only at Sands Key.
Hydrology Biscayne Bay is a shallow semi-enclosed lagoon which averages in depth. Both its mainland margins and the keys are covered by mangrove forest. The park includes the southern portion of Biscayne Bay, with areas of thin sediment called "hardbottom", and vegetated seagrass meadows supporting turtlegrass and shoal grass.
As a result of efforts to control water resources in Florida and projects to drain the Everglades during the early and mid-20th century, water flow into Biscayne Bay has been altered by the construction of canals. These canals channel water from portions of the southeastern Everglades now used for agriculture into the bay. Prior to canal construction, most fresh water inflow came from rain and groundwater, but the canals are now altering the salinity profile of the bay, conveying sediment and pollutants and leading to saltwater intrusion into the Biscayne aquifer. The Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP) was established in 2000 to mitigate the effects of human intervention into the natural water flow of the Everglades. Primarily aimed at the restoration of historical patterns of water flow into Everglades National Park, the project will also deal with issues arising from the diversion of water out of the southern Everglades into Biscayne Bay.NPCA, p. 2 The Biscayne Bay Coastal Wetlands Project (BBCW) is a CERP component specifically intended to redistribute water flow so that fresh water is introduced gradually through creeks and marshes rather than short, heavy discharges through drainage canals.NPCA, p. 13
Human history Native people
Native Americans were present in lower Florida 10,000 years ago, when ocean levels were low and Biscayne Bay was comparatively empty of water. Water levels rose from about 4000 years ago and inundated the bay. Archeologists believe any traces left by the peoples of that era are now submerged; none now exist on dry lands in the park. The Cutler Fossil Site, just to the west of the park, has yielded evidence of human occupation extending to at least 10000 years before the present.Leynes, Cullison, Chapter 2, pp. 9–10
The earliest evidence of human presence in Biscayne dates to about 2500 years before the present, with piles of conch and whelk shells left by the Glades culture. The Glades culture was followed by the Tequesta people, who occupied the shores of Biscayne Bay. The Tequesta were a sedentary community that lived on fish and other sea life, with no significant agricultural activity. A site on Sands Key has yielded potsherds, worked shells and other artifacts indicating occupation from at latest 1000 CE to about 1650, after contact was made with Europeans. Fifty significant archaeological sites have been identified in the park.NPCA, p. 33
Exploration Juan Ponce de León explored the area in 1513, discovering the Florida Keys and encountering the Tequesta on the mainland. Other Spanish explorers arrived later in the 16th century and Florida came under Spanish rule. The Tequesta were resettled by the then-Spanish government in the Florida Keys, and the South Florida mainland was depopulated. Ponce de León referred to the bay as "Chequescha" after its inhabitants, becoming "Tequesta" by the time of Spanish governor Pedro Menéndez de Avilés later in the century. The present name has been attributed to a shipwrecked Basque sailor known as the "Biscaino" or "Viscayno" who lived in the area for a time, or to a more general allusion to the Bay of Biscay.