I am Lorraine Mann
Valladares. I live on the two roads closest to the Everglades National
Park, 217th and 218th Avenues, in the 8.5 SMA, north of Homestead. I would
like to tell you of my ties to the Everglades, Homestead and the 8.5 SMA.
I am 55 years old and came to Homestead in 1947 at 3 months of age. My
father, Walter F. Mann, helped start the commercial and charter fishing
business at Flamingo, Fl. He had just finished 28 years in the Army,
retiring as a Disabled Vet. He was the only charter captain to have a
contract with the National Park Service and Dan Beard. He advised the Army
Corps of Engineers that putting in the flood control canals would ruin the
Everglades. No one in power would listen. He also only had a sixth grade
education. He made a man of himself, one to be respected.
When I was a teenager, my sisters and I went swimming in the lake (an old
oil well) in the Chekika State Park. The land there wasn't flooded. In
fact, I don't remember any parts of Homestead or the Redlands being
flooded from 1947 to 1980. BUT....... the Army Corps of Engineers raised
the water table west of the flood canals. The person I bought the property
above with is a biologist with NOAA. He did extensive research on land
elevation, endangered species, mineral rights and zoning. We bought the
property, dug two irrigation wells, hitting water at 10 feet below ground,
planted 400 lemon-limes and other fruit trees, then started a house.
WOW!!!!
1980 was a hard year. In 1981, we had 400 trees with water above ground. I
was a teacher so I walked a mile down the road, or should I say river,
with fish, snakes and baby alligators swimming by me at 5:30 AM, in my
bathing suit, in the dark with a flashlight, to change clothes on the
paved road where I left my car on the side of the road, hoping it wouldn't
be stolen overnight. The army trucks brought some supplies and carried
kids to bus stops, sometimes stalling themselves. This lasted from August
to October. Airboats would come to see if we were in need, on occasion.
Finally, we could get a small pickup half the way home but the water
wasn't gone until December. And now it is 2002.
The flooding was partly to blame for personal problems and in 1982, I met
my husband, Jose Antonio Valladares. My husband was a political prisoner
in Cuba. He came here during "Mariel." Armando Valladares is his cousin.
We returned to the farm in 1983 to replace the farm taken by Castro and
start my husband's business growing fruit trees and raising farm animals.
Then the water table was raised another 3 feet. Trees were dying and
animals were getting sick and dying. "Water, water everywhere and not a
drop to drink." In 1992, Hurricane Andrew did $225,000 damage to the farm
and home. We rebuilt everything, moving back from a 35 foot travel trailer
in May of 1993. But then, after rebuilding, Water Management wanted the
8.5 SMA. "Castroism is on the move." I couldn't explain to my husband why
they didn't try to take our home before we put $225,000 back into the
property. I couldn't explain t! o him how this United States, my United
States, my father's United States, was no different from Cuba and "Castroism."
And so I fought on. My husband can't participate. He was tortured in jail
in Cuba for three and a half years, for his grandfather and cousin's
butchering a cow for food for the large extended family, with starvation,
a 3x3 foot cell with a hole in the middle, one cup of rice and one cup of
water a day, and electroshock by the man who was just tried for these
crimes. Isn't it torture to have water up to the back bumper of a half-ton
pickup and worry about your wife making it home with water just below the
door of the Mitsubishi? Isn't it torture to see your trees and animals
sick and/or dying? Isn't it torture to have to ask FEMA to give your wife
money to stay somewhere else so she can go to teach school. Isn't it
torture to have to pay insurance that will not pay because the house will
not flood....elevation =10.6 feet....? If the house doesn't flood, there
is no ALE living expenses. Isn't it torture to have FEMA monies available
to fix roads but county commissioners refusing to write one and only one
letter requesting allocation of those monies because "they don't know what
the Army and Water Management are going to do with us"? Isn't it torture
for appraisers to lower appraisals more than $50,000 to comparable
homes/lands because of the uncertainty and conditions of the roads? Isn't
it torture to not know who your true enemies are and where the next fight
will begin. My husband says "at least in Cuba, I know who my enemies are."
"Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink"......1999.....flood
us.....2000.....flood us and everyone to West Palm Beach....2001....flood
us again..... How can it be flooded on one side of a bridge and dry on the
other? Hundred-year floods occur every year? I don't believe God has
deserted us west of the canal. TORTURE IS A HUMAN'S TOOL FOR EXACTING
COMPLIANCE FROM ANIMALS AND/OR OTHER HUMANS. Will the Everglades National
Park really be saved? Or is mitigation land needed by the rock miners? Has
Bob Graham decided on a new project since Miami Lakes was finished? He
hasn't given up his obsession to take our homes since 1978. Are we to
become a new Miami Lakes? Is there really oil under our properties. Why
can rangers live in houses taken by the National Park but we can't? Why
can Water Management use "Save Our Rivers" monies to purchase houses,
instead of barren land, bulldozing them into the ground and covering them
up? Why can the Nature Conservancy use eminent domain to take the land
south of what was Homestead Air Force Base for restoration, abandon that
idea, then sell it to developers for the raceway and Keysgate Estates?
God Bless MY America and all those Americans who research questions and
make educated decisions about the future of MY United States, in support
of the Constitution of the United States. Americans, to me, are people
living here, working, supporting the government, paying taxes, and trying
to make a decent living and home for themselves and their families. "Home
is where the heart is." I also am one of the FIRST AMERICANS, almost half
Cherokee. Will the Americans still in America end up in small reservations
of little value to save the rest of America? If America does not belong to
Americans, to Whom does it belong? I have come from a poor girl from the
South to a well-educated teacher known by people in many parts of the
world.
Today, big transportable pumps are being placed to drain water if
Hurricane Isadore floods Miami. Are the pumps for our area too? ARE ONLY
THE CITY RESIDENTS DESERVING OF FLOOD PROTECTION? CONGRESS GAVE US FLOOD
PROTECTION IN 1994 BUT "THE AGENCIES" SEEM TO THINK THEY ARE ABOVE OR
EXEMPT FROM THE CONTROL OF CONGRESS...... EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THIS IS
DEMOCRACY....................TELL ME WHY I CAN'T SIT IN MY ROCKING CHAIR
AT DUSK ON MY BACK PATIO AND WATCH THE SUNSET OVER THE
EVERGLADES...................TELL ME WHY I AM NO LONGER
FREE............... Lorraine A. Valladares
Lvalla1783@aol.com