Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

Re the March 7 editorial, Hands off our water: I would like to address a few key points regarding discussions with our partners to find a new site for the Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition, which currently is located on land adjacent to our Modesto A. Maidique Campus.

Particularly, I’d like to emphasize that FIU has never proposed to move the Urban Development Boundary or pursue incompatible land use outside of it. This university has always been committed to protecting the natural resources of our region. Indeed, our faculty is made up of some of the foremost experts on Everglades restoration and protection. Our sole purpose has been to find an available and agreeable site for relocation of the fair, so that FIU may grow into the 86 acres the fair currently occupies, just south   of FIU’s campus. The Bird Drive Basin site also presents an opportunity to establish a new legacy park for area residents on the rest of the property.

The Bird Drive Basin property, located about six miles west of campus, was originally acquired by the South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) for the purpose of water management and conservation. As we explored — together with county and fair officials — 16 possible new locations for the fair, we learned that the SFWMD had placed the Bird Drive Basin property on the surplus land list. In November 2011, we began discussions with them about the possibility of relocating the fair to a section of that property.

We look forward to ongoing talks with Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez, county commissioners, state legislators and fair officials as well as a public process to find a win-win resolution that will allow this community’s only public research university to grow, prosper and provide access while preserving the fair and protecting our precious natural resources.

Mark B. Rosenberg,

president, FIU

 

 

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.’’

Florida may be the Sunshine State but it’s the drinking water in our underground aquifers and wetlands as big as the Everglades — serving as bird and wildlife habitat and helping cleanse rainwater back into aquifers, rivers and lakes — that has enabled millions of people to move to this paradise we call home.

As the Legislature moves at warp speed to end its 60-day session by Friday, three issues crucial to South Florida’s ability to grow responsibly and prosper with sufficient clean water are in play. Legislators should restore funding to water management districts, keep their hands off Miami-Dade County’s urban development boundary and provide land for expansion of Florida International University’s medical school at the current fairgrounds in southwest Miami-Dade without putting into jeopardy environmentally sensitive land now being eyed for new fairgrounds.

Fund water districts

After decades of new developments putting pressure on Florida’s water supply, wise state leaders in the 1970s, led by then-Gov. Reubin Askew, created land planning agencies and five regional water districts based not on political power plays but on the state’s natural watershed areas. In 1976, Florida voters approved giving district boards, appointed by the governor, the authority to raise taxes to buy land and manage the water supply in their area. The districts have been instrumental in ensuring there’s enough water before any new massive developments can pop up, and that floodwaters get directed away from existing homes and businesses.

Then last year the Legislature and Gov. Rick Scott — in the name of “economic development” — stripped the state Department of Community Affairs of most growth planning duties, decimated Everglades restoration projects and gutted regional water districts’ budgets by lowering their tax rates, crippling budgets statewide by $703 million. That sent almost 600 of Florida’s top scientists, engineers, flood managers and planning experts packing. All that pain, and the typical taxpaying property owner saved $20 to $40 a year.

Now there’s a chance to restore the five districts’ tax rate cap, but SB 1986 carries meddling strings that would require water districts to get their budgets, at all stages, approved by the Legislative Budget Commission. Such legislative interference not only diffuses accountability away from the governor’s office, where the buck should stop, but injects another political layer on water use decisions that should be based on science, not on what pricey lobbyists say is right.

Restoring funding is a desperately needed first step in getting water resources back on track. A second step would restore water districts’ ability to pay for projects through the sale of bonds. But budget leaders should butt out of micromanaging water policy.

FIU expansion

An amendment that would force a land swap to help FIU’s medical school expand to land around the current fairgrounds south of the campus sets up a conservation nightmare. The problem isn’t the expansion, but the swap that would turn over 350 acres of wetlands in the Bird Drive Everglades Basin for a new fairgrounds far west. That land was bought by the state to protect wetlands and water recharge areas and prevent flooding. As Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez points out, fast-tracking is not advisable. That land is not the right fit for parking lots and buildings.

Miami-Dade UDB

At least a move by Sen. Ellyn Bogdanoff, R-Fort Lauderdale, to require only a majority vote by local governments to change long-term growth plans has died. For now. The change would have meant that Miami-Dade’s urban development boundary — which protects taxpayers from willy-nilly growth in the county’s far western fringe near the Everglades — could be changed by a simple majority instead of a super majority commission vote as Miami-Dade now requires.

Stop meddling with local control, legislators.

Opposition from Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez appears to have killed a complicated land swap proposed by Florida International University — at least the most controversial part of the deal, aimed at moving the county fairgrounds onto wetlands bordering the Everglades.

In a letter sent Monday to state lawmakers, Gimenez said he objected to pushing the Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition from its long-time home abutting FIU’s main campus to a site outside the county’s sprawl-controlling urban development boundary (UDB.)

He repeated the message during an interview with The Miami Herald editorial board. While the county has been working to help “land-locked’’ FIU find ways to expand its main campus and new medical school in West Miami-Dade, he said, “I don’t support moving the county fairgrounds outside the UDB.’’

Laura Reynolds, executive director of The Tropical Audubon Society, one of several environmental groups that campaigned against moving the fair to a mucky, frequently flooded area favored by wading birds, praised the mayor’s stance as “great news.’’

But another part of the proposal may still have life in it. In the waning days of the legislative session, FIU lobbyists and Miami-Dade lawmakers continue to push an amendment to secure a 350-acre tract bought by the state more than a decade ago for $3.7 million for a since-scrapped Everglades restoration project. The university’s original plan was to give Miami-Dade the wetlands tract as a site for a new fairground and park. In exchange, FIU hoped to take over the existing 87-acre fairgrounds.

But even if the Legislature does sign off on the free, 99-year lease FIU seeks, the idea of moving the state’s largest county fair to land originally purchased for conservation now appears dead at the county level.

Doris Howe, a spokeswoman for the county’s Parks and Recreation Department, which had been working for 18 months with FIU and the fair’s board of directors to find potential new locations, said the mayor’s letter to lawmakers about the wetlands west of the UDB had “made it really clear that it’s not under consideration to become a fairgrounds.”

“Without question, we’re going to abide by what our chief executive says,’’ Howe said.

FIU administrators did not respond to repeated interview requests. But Sandra Gonzalez-Levy, an FIU senior vice president, issued a brief statement Tuesday saying FIU was continuing to work with the county and fair to explore options “that could support our growth plan and need for additional land contiguous to FIU’s Modesto A. Maidique Campus. Moving the fair would make the current fairgrounds available to FIU.”

FIU had pitched its proposal as a win-win that would help a university with a fast-growing medical school that has run out of real estate while also preserving undeveloped land near the Everglades.

The school, along with parks managers and the nonprofit company that runs the fair, scouted 16 sites in Northwest Miami-Dade for potential new locations of up to 250 acres, most needed for parking up to 18,000 cars. The top choice was a chunk of wetlands along Tamiami Trail a few miles east of Krome Avenue that the South Florida Water Management District was considering selling as “surplus.”

With a fast-growing medical school on a built-out campus, the university is pursuing state-owned land bordering the Everglades to exchange for the existing county fair grounds; environmentalists question the plans."