Maggy Hurchalla, Everglades advocate with roots in Miami and a tie to Janet Reno, dies at 81

Maggy Hurchalla, a relentless environmental advocate for Everglades restoration and a five-term Martin County commissioner, has died, her family said. She was 81.

Hurchalla passed away Saturday at her home in Stuart due to cardiac arrest while recovering from a second hip surgery, George Hurchalla, one of her sons, told the Herald in a statement Sunday.

Hurchalla is credited with helping pass a landmark comprehensive plan in 1990 that limited the height of buildings to under 40 feet or four stories in an effort to protect wetlands — her proudest achievement, George Hurchalla said.

George Hurchalla said that as the younger sister of the late Janet Reno, the country’s first woman attorney general, his mother became her sister’s confidant and supported her mission to reform the country’s juvenile justice and child welfare systems.

First elected in 1974, Hurchalla would become known as a fierce defender of the environment and public lands while serving in office for 20 years. On a Republican-controlled board of county commissioners, Hurchalla, a Democrat, often found herself on the losing side when voting at board meetings.

“She had the willingness to compromise only when compromising was warranted,” said Eve Samples, the executive director of Friends of the Everglades, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving the Everglades and its ecosystems.

George Hurchalla told the Herald there is still work to be done to preserve clean water in Florida — one of his mother’s priorities.

“The recent events with fertilizer runoff in Lake Okeechobee, the algae blooms and the red tide has reinforced how incredibly important it is to preserve clean water for future generations in Florida,” he said.

Hurchalla served on advisory councils such as the Governor’s Commission for a Sustainable South Florida. She remained involved in the battle for restoring the Everglades right up to her death, volunteering with Friends of the Everglades.

“Just as recently as last Tuesday, I was emailing with her about environmental issues — a proposal she was concerned about in Martin County,” Samples said.

Hurchalla’s early years

Born Margaret Sloan Reno on Dec. 11, 1940, in Coral Gables, Hurchalla was the third of four children. Both her mother, Jane Wood Reno, and her father, Henry Olaf Reno, were journalists.

After graduating from Coral Gables Senior High in 1958, she would go on four years later to graduate with honors in psychology from Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, where she met her husband, Jim Hurchalla.

After having four children, Hurchalla and her husband bought a waterfront parcel of land in Rocky Point in Stuart, which George Hurchalla said was virtually an uninhabited area at the time, surrounded by mangroves. It was there they built a Florida board and batten cypress house that would remain their home forever.

After serving on a local water board and a commission to study turning Martin County into a charter county in 1972, Hurchalla continued her environmental advocacy efforts by jumping into local politics.

Simply put, Samples said Hurchalla was ahead of her time.

“She recognized, I think earlier than most people, that Florida’s natural resources were not unlimited. That if we didn’t protect the remaining land and water that we have, that we would reach a tipping point,” she added.

An avid kayaker

The environmentalist’s life didn’t merely revolve around politics, she was a lifelong adventurer who took up whitewater kayaking in her 60s, paddling all across the United States — including in the Everglades — and in Latin America, her family said.

“With a women’s kayaking group mostly 40 to 50 years younger than her, she fearlessly dropped 20-foot-high waterfalls in Veracruz Mexico in her early 70s,” the family said.

George Hurchalla said he had gone kayaking with his mom since he was 6 years old — adding that while they often got lost together, he admired her confidence.

“No matter what situation she was put into, she would find her way out,” he said.

Samples noted that she would also give free kayaking tours to her friends and other like-minded people near Stuart, even reciting poetry while they were surrounded by mangroves.

“Even when she reached the age of 80, she would out-paddle anyone years younger than her. She was always faster and had more endurance because she would do it almost every single day,” Samples said.

A multimillion-dollar lawsuit

Hurchalla would need that endurance while facing one of the greatest challenges of her life more than 20 years after leaving office.

In 2019, an appeals court upheld a $4.4 million judgment against the environmentalist a year after a jury found she interfered in a contract between Martin County and the owners of Lake Point Restoration, a rock mining company, the TC Palm newspaper reported. In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court denied hearing an appeal filed by Hurchalla.

“The six jurors in the case agreed with Lake Point’s claims that directives Hurchalla gave to county commissioners amounted to sabotage of Lake Point’s project and cost the company millions of dollars in lost business,” the newspaper said.

Lake Point also sued the county for breach of contract — later resolved via a $12 million settlement and an apology from the county.

Hurchalla was undeterred and refused to offer an apology, Sample said, feeling she did nothing wrong.

“Maggy was not discouraged and she kept fighting for what she believed in,” Samples said.

Survivors and services

She is survived by her husband, Jim, her four children, James, Robert, Jane, and George, and grandchildren Jimmy and Kym Hurchalla, and Hunter and Ava Weaver.

Funeral service arrangements had not been decided as of Monday, George Hurchalla said.

In lieu of flowers, the Hurchalla family is requesting donations to Friends of the Everglades to continue powering the work that fueled her passion.