Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

Miami-Dade County’s Department of Environmental Resource Management — vital to the region’s natural resources, but reviled by some residents who consider it heavy-handed — already is a shadow of its former self. Now it looks like the county commission is poised to finish it off in the name of streamlining the county’s construction-permitting process and economic development.

That would be a mistake, putting the long-term environmental well-being of this community in danger. Environmental protection is not antithetical to either of those goals, and commissioners should seek balance when the issue comes up for discussion, scheduled for their Tuesday meeting.

County Mayor Carlos Gimenez last year combined the functions of the environmental, planning and zoning departments. It was part of his campaign promise to streamline county operations at a savings to tax-stressed residents. His idea of a “one-stop shop” for permitting functions makes a lot of sense. As he said: “You have to jump through 17 hoops for somebody to replace a sea wall.”

Now, in his pursuit of another overhaul, he and the commission must make sure that taxpayers ultimately don’t bear the high costs of a tainted, damaged environment. In many ways, it’s our bread and butter, drawing tourists, providing recreation and, yes, creating economic development. Compare the parks and condos that have come to line Biscayne Bay decades after it was cleaned of icky things that repelled rather than attracted water activities.

More important, this community is sitting on top of its water supply, a fragile resource that is under threat of contamination, along with the Everglades, which must be protected from further degradation.

Mr. Gimenez’s vision is to fold what remains of DERM into a new Regulatory and Economic Resources Department. DERM was responsible for enforcing a broad range of county, state and federal laws. But notice how “environment” is not even in the new department’s name. That’s worrisome, despite the mayor’s protestations that the environment — the air we breath, the water we drink, the landscapes and vistas we enjoy — remains a priority.

Apparently taking their cues from the state, which foolishly took a sledgehammer to its growth-management laws, some commissioners, too, seem ready to dismantle the policies that have stood between smart growth and a development free-for-all. One proposal would let small farmers fill wetlands without permits. This means that residents who have staked a claim in the 81/2-Square-Mile Area in west Miami-Dade could build in areas that, along with underground aquifers, provide the water the community relies on. Of course, these residents have waged a pitched battle with DERM — vilifying its inspectors and its fines — for almost two decades. But allowing building in designated wetlands would be a short-sighted sop to a very small group of disgruntled people, to the detriment of the rest of us.

Mr. Gimenez, however, is right to want to streamline the county’s construction-permitting process. It has been an impediment to getting businesses up and running and letting homeowners make necessary repairs and move on.

Still, replacing a sea wall remains a lot easier than replacing coral reefs and drinking water and wetlands. It was DERM’s responsibility to protect them all. And the mayor and commission must ensure that this responsibility does not disappear when the department does.

The “Deep Dredge” project, a critical and controversial key to PortMiami’s ambitious $2 billion expansion plan, is back on schedule after a legal settlement announced on Wednesday.

Environmentalists, who had argued that two years of blasting and digging in the port’s main channel would leave long-lasting scars in Biscayne Bay, agreed to drop an administrative challenge that threatened to delay the work for months or longer.

In exchange, Miami-Dade County has agreed to an additional $2.3 million in restoration and monitoring projects and other tweaks, such as a narrower daily blasting window, intended to enhance protection for corals, sea grass beds and other marine life.

“This is a win-win for the entire community,” Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez said in a release. “The agreement provides additional funding for important environmental projects while at the same time allowing for the timely completion of the dredge project.”

Laura Reynolds, executive director of the Tropical Audubon Society, said the settlement didn’t address all of environmentalists’ concerns but had “raised the bar’’ on protecting the bay’s surrounding, fish-rich waters.

“What we’ve been able to do is make the permit a lot stronger,” said Reynolds, whose organization joined with Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper and local fishing captain Dan Kipnis last November in filing a legal challenge to a Florida Department of Environmental Protection permit issued for the project.

The deal, expected to be approved by the Miami-Dade County Commission on May 1, clears the way for work to begin as early as this summer.

For port managers, keeping to that schedule is important. With a truck tunnel under Government Cut in the works and a new freight rail system also coming on line, the plan was to complete the dredging in 2014, putting Miami in position to lure a new class of mega-size cargo ships at the same time an overhaul is completed at the Panama Canal. Port Director Bill Johnson has projected the deeper channel could double the seaport’s container shipping business and spawn thousands of jobs in coming years.

The work — widening the port’s offshore entrance to the main channel by some 300 feet and deepening much of the port to 52 feet by scooping out about eight feet of rock, sand and rubble — would also consume some eight acres of sea grass beds and seven acres of reefs, including about five acres of previously undisturbed reef at the channel’s mouth.

Environmentalists had argued that the DEP and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers didn’t include enough “mitigation” to offset the loss of reefs and sea grass beds or set strict enough water quality standards to minimize silting damage to surrounding areas. They also warned that blasting during the two-year-long project could harm or kill marine life from snook to dolphin.

Port managers, backed by state and federal agencies, insisted most impacts will be minimal and short-lived, pointing out a smaller dredging project a few years ago that left no lingering scars to surrounding areas.

Under the terms of the settlement, reached after three days of mediation involving environmental groups, the county, the DEP and the Corps, the seaport will transfer $1.3 million into a Miami-Dade trust fund for environmental enhancement projects.

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.”