Red Reef Park: How Bureaucrats Buried America’s Best Snorkeling Reef in Sand - 4Boca.com

When I was a boy we'd go snorkeling there all the time. I enjoyed it all through high school. By the time I was in college the plans to destroy it were underway. When I was a Park Ranger I watched it happen first-hand. My job was to guard the outlet of the dredge, to keep people looking for sanddollars from getting hurt by the sand being pumped over the beach. I asked the girl there who was working for Coastal Planning and Engineering how they were going to keep the reef from getting covered over and she got really mad at me. She told the Chief Ranger I was trying to ask her for "dates" aka bugging her for attention. I wasn't at all. In fact I was dating Don Capron's daughter at the time and I certainly knew not to shit where I eat. I explained that all to the Chief Ranger and he told me to stop asking questions. He said if the reef gets covered over I had to be cool about it.

I never have been cool about it since.