INDIAN CREEK VILLAGE, Fla. — On a man-made island north of Miami, the titans of various industries have found their refuge. Jeff Bezos, the Amazon founder, has collected a trio of properties along the same shoreline as the football legend Tom Brady and President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner.
A community of only a few dozen homes, the latest of which sold for $110 million as a vacant lot, Indian Creek Village has emerged as the nation’s premier enclave for billionaires willing to pay any price to achieve the pinnacle of privacy, security and luxury. A gated bridge blocks the public from access, and a police force uses cameras and radar to monitor anyone who approaches.
But one amenity of modern life has remained surprisingly elusive. In a place where many of the estates have more than 10 toilets, nobody has quite figured out how to dispose of what comes out of them.
Septic systems along the shores of Biscayne Bay have for decades been a source of pollution. In Indian Creek, known by locals as the “Billionaire Bunker,” leaders finally came up with a plan to get rid of their septic tanks and export the island’s waste through the sewer pipes of the neighboring town, Surfside. But to Indian Creek’s surprise, Surfside wanted $10 million for the privilege.
Officials there contended that the fee was a contribution to the historical cost of a system that Surfside created and maintained. Indian Creek leaders called it extortion. Quietly, they went to the state Capitol to pursue a much cheaper solution.
In the battle between the island billionaires and the neighboring millionaires, Indian Creek is on the cusp of prevailing. Buried deep in a large transportation bill approved by the state legislature is a new legal measure prohibiting municipalities from blocking or charging for the installation of certain sewer lines — like the one Indian Creek wants to build, for example.
The bill, which would force Surfside to accept its neighbor’s sewage, is now headed to the state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis. The governor’s office did not respond to requests for comment, but Indian Creek leaders expect him to sign it.
Charles Burkett, the Surfside mayor who had proposed the $10 million fee, struck a diplomatic tone in an interview, calling the backdoor legislative effort “creative.” The saga has placed Burkett in a delicate political position, balancing his city’s finances against the desires of some of the state’s most influential people, a number of whom he knows personally.
“We want to be good neighbors,” Burkett said.
In a world where billionaires are increasingly exercising political clout, the fight over sewage in Indian Creek suggests the degree to which their influence is extending not just to policy in the White House and Congress but to some of the most foundational issues of municipal governance. Indian Creek’s village council is filled with major Republican political allies.
One of them is Kushner, who was quietly appointed to the council last year. In his earlier political life, Kushner played a critical White House role on issues ranging from peace negotiations in the Middle East to the domestic opioid epidemic. His agenda now features discussions about municipal contracts, mutual aid agreements and how to dispose of the village’s old police firearms.
Septic Contamination
The turquoise waters and sandy shores across the Miami region hide an unpleasant reality. Water testing often detects such strong signs of fecal contamination that officials advise swimmers to stay out of the water, and fish kills have been linked to a damaged ecosystem. Septic tank pollution has been blamed as a key contributor for decades.
Governments have been under pressure to extend sewer lines across the region, and Indian Creek Village, built long ago atop a mangrove swamp, has been an area of concern, county records show.
A 2018 county analysis found that of the 30 septic systems on the island at the time, 22 were vulnerable to failure, and all were at risk as sea levels rise.
Stephen J. Helfman, the village attorney, said in an interview that the village was well aware that it was sending sewage into the bay. “We have to get off the septic tanks,” he said.
The village has already taken some steps, constructing a sewage collection system under the single road that circles the island, but homes are not yet connected to those pumps and pipes. The village expects the conversion to eventually cost some $8 million.
A bigger problem has persisted: There is no place to send the waste.
An Escalating Battle
Earlier this month, Indian Creek’s village leaders gathered in a narrow council chamber in a scene that resembled many other small-town council meetings. They stood for the Pledge of Allegiance, facing an American flag. Staff members tinkered with the Zoom video.
“Jared, can you see us?” someone asked as the meeting was about to begin. They waited for an affirmative from Kushner, who logged in wearing a dark T-shirt.
With a village population of only 84, council meetings are rare, and visitors to the gatherings rarer still. On the day of Indian Creek’s most recent session, the only visitors were the head of the island’s exclusive golf course and two journalists from The New York Times.
Much of the meeting focused on issues besides the sewage. There was a disagreement over compensation for a contractor. Discussion ensued over the island’s extensive construction projects, which have been straining the aging bridge that serves as the only roadway over the island’s natural moat. The police chief, who oversees a force of about one officer for every two properties, asked for a policy to require visitors to produce a government-issued ID rather than the Costco cards some people try to use.
Then the sewer issue came up. City leaders said they were hopeful that the new legislation, once passed, would allow the village to bore under Surfside’s streets whether the neighboring town objected or not.
“They did everything they could to try to stop us,” Helfman told the council.
“But we got past this,” said Bernard Klepach, the mayor of Indian Creek, who is also the chief executive of the in-flight duty free company 3Sixty. “I know that we’re working very hard. It’s now just dotting the I‘s and crossing the T’s to finish it.”
“It’s a little bit more than that,” Helfman cautioned.
Emails released under a public records request show that in recent weeks, the neighborly dispute has continued to escalate. As an alternative to connecting to Surfside’s sewer line, Indian Creek proposed building its own line, which would travel a half-mile path under the town of Surfside and connect to a line owned by another community, Bay Harbor Islands.
Surfside rejected that plan, saying it didn’t wants its streets torn up. Indian Creek countered that it could tunnel in, instead of tearing up the road. Surfside still said no, suggesting that Indian Creek send its sewer line not through Surfside, but under the bay itself to reach Bay Harbor Islands directly.
At his Surfside home, where windows offer a view across the bay to Indian Creek, Burkett said his town was still paying off past debt for sewer system improvements — a cost he estimates to be about $30 million.
But Klepach, he said, had made it clear that Indian Creek was not interested in paying a $10 million portion of that.
“He was adamant,” Burkett said.
Burkett said he was not aware that Indian Creek had taken the issue to Tallahassee until he got a call from someone in the governor’s office. The aide, he said, appeared to be sympathetic to Indian Creek’s situation.
“He’s the one who kind of said, ‘We’ll just make a law, and that’s how we’ll solve the problem,’” Burkett said.
‘Extortion’
Klepach, in an interview, said the $10 million partnership request from Surfside — the equivalent of the village’s budget for an entire year, but only about 1% of the village’s total assessed property values — was a “shakedown.” Another council member, Irwin Tauber, chimed in with a different term: “extortion.” Helfman, the village attorney, called it a “ransom.” He said that in his decades of experience, adjacent local governments worked together to accommodate public utilities.
“We were not going to be extorted by him,” Helfman said. “We are a local government just like they are. They are a wealthy community too.”
Helfman noted that Surfside’s sewage gets sent to the city of Miami Beach, which sends it along to a sewage treatment plant operated by the county. Communities pay small fees for the convenience of moving through each other’s territory and the monthly bills paid by customers cover the costs of the system. Indian Creek expects to pay these normal fees no matter which system ultimately takes its waste.
Helfman said the Florida Department of Transportation had been more than willing to insert language helping Indian Creek into a bill that was otherwise focused on dozens of transportation issues, including economic growth of the state’s seaports and airport regulatory reform.
The transportation department did not respond to an inquiry from the Times.
Records show the village spent less than $10,000 on a lobbyist to help shepherd the matter.
As it is, the town has plenty of political connections. Kushner, who did not respond to an interview request, has long ties to Republican leaders through Trump’s White House. Another council member is Irma Braman, who along with her husband, the billionaire businessman Norman Braman, has been a major donor to Republican causes. Klepach, the mayor, gave his largest contribution on record in Florida to the state Republican Party earlier this year.
If DeSantis signs the bill, Indian Creek officials said, they believe they can send a sewage line through Surfside to connect with nearby Bay Harbor Islands’s line that heads on through Miami Beach — though it is not clear whether Bay Harbor Islands may ultimately seek to extract a fee of its own.
For now, Indian Creek leaders are forecasting an end to the community’s use of septic systems.
“The bottom line is that it’s the right thing to do,” Klepach said. “Forget about us and our community, if we’re entitled or not. It is for Biscayne Bay, and it’s for the betterment of our state.”
