Published by the Stuart News/tcpalm.com By Max Chesnes
Maggy Hurchalla
February 19, 2022
Maggy served as a long-time Board Advisor to The Guardians of Martin County. We are forever grateful for her contributions to Martin County.
STUART — Margaret “Maggy” Hurchalla, a doyenne of slow-growth environmentalism and former five-term Martin County commissioner, died Saturday, her family said. She was 81.
Hurchalla was a lifelong, fearless advocate for Everglades restoration and an emphatic voice for protecting Florida’s natural beauty. She was an Everglades Coalition Hall of Fame member and won countless local, state and national environmental awards for her conservation work.
“She was a creature of nature, and she took us all along for the voyage: Her family, friends, children, so many members of the county and complete strangers who just wanted to go on nature walks,” her daughter, Jane Hurchalla, said in an interview with TCPalm.
“She worked to make natural resources available to everyone.”
During her 20-year career as a commissioner, Hurchalla spearheaded Martin County’s first Comprehensive Land-Use Plan in 1990, the current framework for growth-management programs. It was her “proudest achievement,” said her son, George Hurchalla.
“Maggy’s impact on Florida’s conservation movement cannot be overstated,” said Eve Samples, executive director of Stuart-based Friends of the Everglades.
“She’s the reason developers can’t fill in wetlands in Martin County, and the reason I-95 bends away from Stuart … She helped craft development rules that made our community a leader in the state for environmental preservation,” Samples said.
“She was inspiringly irreverent, and she left a mark on our community that will not be forgotten,” she said.