The Surfrider Foundation Miami Chapter is pleased to have reached an agreement with the developer of the Reefline, an artificial reef and public art project proposed for South Beach in Miami, Florida, and has therefore withdrawn its appeal of a local permit for the project.
The Miami Chapter had previously appealed a permit issued by Miami-Dade County Department of Environmental Resources Management for Reefline’s phase one deployment. The permit had been issued while the Chapter was in the midst of discussions with Reefline to address Surfrider’s concerns on potential impacts to South Beach’s south of Fifth waves.
Surfrider has continued engaging in discussions with Reefline’s developer Blue Lab Preservation Society and is pleased that the parties have reached agreement on key terms to avoid adverse impacts on South Beach’s waves. Blue Lab has agreed not to deploy Reefline south of Fourth Street under any circumstances. The project will be deployed between Fourth and Fifth Street, and Blue Lab has agreed to contract and finance wave modeling at the University of Miami’s Alfred C. Glassell Jr. SUSTAIN Laboratory, which will take into account specific South Beach surf conditions requested by Surfrider. Reefline has further agreed to resize and/or reorient the project to minimize impacts to the waves, if any, shown by modeling. Surfrider appreciates these commitments Reefline has made in order to protect South Beach’s waves.
Staley Prom is an in-house attorney for the Surfrider Foundation, providing legal guidance to the organization and its 80 grassroots chapters across the U.S., on clean water, public beach access, coastal preservation, ocean protection, and plastic pollution related matters. Staley also performs general counsel duties related to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and advocacy related compliance, and manages Surfrider’s legal internship program. Prior to joining Surfrider full time in 2015, Staley practiced municipal law at Green, De Bortnowsky & Quintanilla, where she served as a Deputy City Attorney for the cities of Rancho Mirage, Cathedral City, and Victorville, California. She has held internships at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the California Attorney General’s Land Law Section, and Surfrider. Staley is an advisor to the Executive Committee of the Environmental Law Section of the California Lawyers Association, having served on the Executive Committee between 2018 and 2022. In this role, Staley provided leadership on the Section’s sustainability efforts, and contributed to the Student Environmental Law Negotiations Competition and Environmental Law Writing Competition. Staley holds a J.D. from UCLA School of Law, and graduated summa cum laude from the University of Florida with degrees in business administration and communications. She is originally from Jacksonville, Florida, and now resides in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains where she enjoys spending time with her family in nature and at the beach.