This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News, a nonprofit, non-partisan news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
A state-commissioned environmental assessment on the Everglades migrant detention site known as Alligator Alcatraz, conducted after opponents sued, raises concerns about pollution from the more than 200 generators powering the facility.
The report was among more than 3,000 records made public this week in a lawsuit filed by conservation groups and the Miccosukee Tribe over the detention site, which is situated within a delicate region of the Everglades, a vast watershed that is responsible for the drinking water of millions of Floridians. Thousands of migrants have been detained at the facility since it opened last summer as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration.
In their filing, the conservation groups and tribe accuse the federal and state governments of unlawfully rushing the facility to completion without a required environmental review under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The government agencies had contended the facility was a state and not a federal one, and that the federal review was not necessary. The agencies also said the detention center would not harm the environment. The site remains open while the litigation is pending before the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A hearing is scheduled for April.
But the newly released records reveal the Florida Division of Emergency Management (FDEM) commissioned an environmental consulting firm to conduct an environmental assessment “as stipulated by the National Environmental Policy Act,” as the firm’s report states. The document is dated Oct. 24, 2025, months after Alligator Alcatraz began operating and the conservation groups and tribe filed their lawsuit. FDEM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The fact is the law requires this analysis to happen before the construction occurred, and that didn’t happen. So it’s too little, too late,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director and a senior attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the conservation groups involved in the litigation. “All around, it affirms and confirms that we are correct in our case, and we look forward to continuing to move forward.”
The environmental assessment concludes Alligator Alcatraz is unlikely to significantly alter the landscape at the site because much of the new construction is confined to the vicinity of a runway that dates back at least 40 years and had been used for pilot training. But the report raises concerns about emissions of air pollutants such as carbon monoxide and particulate matter associated with vehicle use at the site and the continuously running generators that power the facility. The report says those emissions exceed regulatory thresholds.
The document also makes note of the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the generators but suggests the emissions can be reduced to below regulated levels with the installation of nonselective catalytic reduction systems to each generator. Still, the report fails to discuss the release of carbon into the atmosphere that occurs when wetlands such as those found in the Everglades are developed, a significant omission, said Phoenix Rogers, an assistant professor specializing in aquatic ecology at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.
“They are misrepresenting that specifically. If you are destroying wetlands, they are a huge carbon sink,” he said. “When we build any kind of infrastructure, we lose that capacity forever, and it’s just something we can’t get back. And I think anytime something is developed, that is often something that gets disregarded.”
The environmental assessment appears to contain other such oversights. When it comes to socioeconomic impacts, the report fails to acknowledge the nearby tribal lands of the Miccosukee, who regard the Everglades as sacred. Within a three-mile radius of Alligator Alcatraz are 10 Miccosukee villages, including one a mere 1,000 feet from the facility. The document states the closest school is 32 miles away in Everglades City without mentioning a Miccosukee school 10 miles from the site. The report concludes the detention center will provide a minor economic benefit locally by offering jobs.
The document also lists 12 federally or state-protected plants or animals, or species proposed for protection, that occur within the area, including the endangered Florida panther, the official state animal. The report anticipates the detention site’s impact on the panther will be minor, contradicting a panther expert who testified last August at an evidentiary hearing in Miami in the conservation groups’ and tribe’s litigation. The expert said the facility was on lands important to the panther and that he was surprised the animal’s plight had not been considered in advance.
“Overall this environmental assessment falls far short of what’s required under the National Environmental Policy Act,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades, another conservation group involved in the litigation. “To build a mass detention center in the heart of the Everglades surrounded by our country’s first national preserve, without in-depth and public analysis with opportunity for input and consideration of alternatives that would be less damaging — it’s enraging.”
Banner photo: A sign outside Alligator Alcatraz (iStock image). Sign up for The Invading Sea newsletter by visiting here. To support The Invading Sea, click here to make a donation. If you are interested in submitting an opinion piece to The Invading Sea, email Editor Nathan Crabbe.
