MIAMI— The state of Florida has been awarded $608 million in reimbursement funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for building and running mass detention centers, including the sprawling facility called “Alligator Alcatraz” in Big Cypress National Preserve in the heart of the Everglades. The information was made public by a WPLG story posted today.

Because FEMA funds are being used at the Everglades detention center the facility is legally required to undergo federal environmental review to protect endangered wildlife.

“The state and federal government continue to dodge their responsibility for complying with environmental laws, and the Everglades are paying the price,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Friends of the Everglades. “The award of FEMA funds is more clear evidence that activity at Alligator Alcatraz must be halted to comply with bedrock environmental protections.”

“This seems to be the smoking gun proving that our lawsuit challenging Alligator Alcatraz is entirely correct,” said Elise Bennett, Florida and Caribbean director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “This is a federal project being built with federal funds that’s required by federal law to go through a complete environmental review. The Trump administration can’t keep lying through their teeth to the American public at the expense of Florida’s imperiled wildlife. We’ll do everything we can to stop this lawless, destructive and wasteful debacle.”

“This confirms what we’ve said all along, that the state and federal government had an agreement and now it’s been actualized. This shows this has been a federal action all along and federal environmental law applies,” said Tania Galloni, managing attorney for the Florida office of Earthjustice. “The public is entitled to information from the government about how all this came about, details that they have been shielding from the public and the court.”

“The construction of this immigration detention facility was a federal project from the jump, and this just confirms it. Even Judge Lagoa, though pausing the trial court’s preliminary injunction, had to admit that: ‘if the Federal Defendants ultimately decide to approve that request and reimburse Florida for its expenditures related to the Facility, then they need to first conduct an EIS.’ With this action, it is past time to comply with federal environmental law,” said Paul J. Schwiep of Coffey Burlington and counsel for Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity.

The Everglades facility was challenged in a June 27 lawsuit filed by Friends of the Everglades and the Center for Biological Diversity, represented by Scott Hiaasen, Paul Schwiep, Earthjustice and Center attorneys, and joined by the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. During lawsuit hearings it was established that FEMA funding was promised for the project before it began.

A federal district court judge on Aug. 21 ruled in favor of the groups and ordered that the facility wind down operations as the lawsuit proceeded. That order was paused on Sept. 4 by a federal appeals court, which based its ruling in part on a lack of information showing the state had received the federal funds, which would require federal environmental reviews.

The Center for Biological Diversity has an ongoing Freedom of Information Act request filed to obtain records on the FEMA funding.