Florida International University came up short Thursday in its legislative push for a controversial deal that would have given the school 350 acres of wetlands bordering the Everglades.
An amendment to a water management bill that would have given FIU control of the state-owned tracts in West Miami-Dade was killed at the request of the governor’s office, said House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami.
FIU had hoped to use the land in a land swap that potentially would have moved the Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition to the wetlands site so the university could expand into existing fairgrounds land next door.
But Lopez-Cantera said the school could still secure the wetlands — purchased more than a decade ago for $3.7 million for a now-scrapped Everglades project — through on-going negotiations with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.
He said aides to Gov. Rick Scott have said “they would work with FIU to help them achieve their goal.”
In a letter to lawmakers this week, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez objected to moving the fairgrounds to the site because it sits beyond the county’s urban development boundary, or UDB.
Environmentalists were pleased with the removal of the amendment. They broadly support the remainder of Senate Bill 1986, because it reverses budgets cuts ordered to the state’s water management districts last year.
Laura Reynolds, executive director of Tropical Audubon, was hopeful that FIU and the county would seek a new fairground site inside the UDB.
“We’re not against the FIU expansion. We’re not against the movement of the fair,” she said. “We’re against filling wetlands, particularly in that area.’’
via miamiherald.com