Environmental Intersection by George Lindemann

An unusual legislative maneuver intended to push the accelerator on PortMiami’s Deep Dredge project, which has been indefinitely stalled pending an environmental review, could quickly encounter a speed bump.

The measure would force such reviews to be held within 30 days — but environmentalists question whether it will hold up in court. James Porter, a Miami attorney representing environmentalists challenging a state permit for the controversial $150 million dredging project, called the effort to rewrite rules and then apply them retroactively “extremely uncommon.”

The measure, attached to an important transportation bill, was expected to pass in the last hours of the session Friday. It would go into effect once signed by Gov. Rick Scott, potentially forcing an administrative challenge now set for August to be moved months earlier.

“From my perspective, this is highly prejudicial,” said Porter, whose clients include Audubon Society, Biscayne Bay Waterkeeper and Miami Beach fishing captain Dan Kipnis.

One of the measure’s supporters, House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami, said he was not concerned about potential legal challenges, which he dismissed as “another stall tactic” from environmentalists. “The language doesn’t stop them from having the ability to be heard,” Lopez-Cantera said. “It just speeds up the process.”

Lopez-Cantera said he was confident the measure, which he said was drafted by Miami-Dade County attorneys and reviewed by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, would hold up. The measure doesn’t specifically mention PortMiami but it was written to force a quicker administrative hearing.

Porter called the accusations of foot-dragging “hogwash.” The groups were unable to formally appeal the permit to allow the dredging until a draft version was issued in November. He said the request was filed within a 14-day window.

Timing of the dredging is important for port managers. With a tunnel under Government Cut to give trucks better access and a new freight rail system coming on line, the plan was to complete the dredging in 2014. That would open up Miami for a new class of mega-sized cargo ships at the same time when the Panama Canal, which is also undergoing an overhaul, will also be able to handle such cargo.

The project is a priority for both Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez and the governor. In his first months in office. Scott took the unusual step of pledging to cover the $75 million federal share in the project, with hopes that Congress will pay the state back.

Environmentalists contend the state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers haven’t set strict enough water quality standards to minimize silting damage surrounding sea grass beds and reefs and warn that weeks of blasting to deepen the channel could harm marine life. Port managers, as well as state and federal agencies overseeing the job, insist most impacts will be short-lived and minimal, pointing out a smaller dredging project a few years ago that left no lingering scars to surrounding areas.

Port Director Bill Johnson, who calls the dredging critical to an ambitious $2 billion port overhaul, said the plan had already been exhaustively and repeatedly reviewed. Port managers weren’t being the “bad guys,” he said, but trying to ensure the success of a project that could help produce thousands of new jobs.

“This is not something that has just been pulled out of the rabbit’s hat,” he said. “Thirteen years this project has been around. Let’s be honest, this is nothing new.”

But Kipnis, a charter captain and activist, said the preliminary permit Florida environmental regulators issued includes variances that will allow contractors to produce “mixing zones” that are five times larger and more turbid than typically allowed. Kipnis called the maneuver a blatant power play. “This is like old time Chicago politics.”

TALLAHASSEE -- A bill that won the support of the Florida House on Thursday could jump-start the stalled Port of Miami Deep Dredge.

The proposed legislation — which passed by a 110-5 vote — has to do with permits for storm-water management systems.

But earlier this week, House Majority Leader Carlos Lopez-Cantera, R-Miami, tacked on language about permits for deep-water ports. The amendment requires legal challenges to dredging projects to be heard within 30 days of the motion being filed.

The revised version of the bill could come in handy for the $150 million Port of Miami project, which is being held up by challenges from environmental groups and the community of Fisher Island.

An administrative law judge in Tallahassee recently ordered a hearing for August — putting the dredging and blasting scheduled to start this summer on indefinite hold.

During a trip to Tallahassee last week, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez asked members of the Miami-Dade delegation to help get the dredge underway as soon as possible.

“We need to speed this up,” Gimenez said.

Lopez-Cantera said opponents of the dredge had employed “delay tactics” and were afforded ample opportunity to have their voices heard.

“The economic impact to our community is too important to let a small group of obstructionists delay it any longer than necessary,” he said.

But Laura Reynolds, executive director of the Tropical Audubon Society, said the amendment sounded like an effort to circumvent legal procedure. She pointed out that the groups had already scheduled mediation hearings next month with Florida regulators in addition to the hearing set for August.

“We have a date scheduled and now we’re seeing this sort of an end run,” Reynolds said.

Reynolds said the aim wasn’t to derail a project that port managers say could create thousands of jobs, but to ensure that the work doesn’t come at the expense of the surrounding marine environment. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, she said, had rejected what she called “minimal” protections for things like water quality originally requested by the state.

“We have no delusions about stopping the port expansion,” she said. “We just want to protect Biscayne Bay.”

In a meeting Thursday with members of The Miami Herald’s Editorial Board, Corps project managers insisted the environmental impacts of the project would be short-lived and minimized by closely monitoring turbidity and temporarily shutting down buckets or cutters to prevent dense, damaging plumes from forming.

Terri Jordan-Sellers, the port’s biologist for the project, said critics had exaggerated the impacts from blasting.

“They think of bombs going off in the bay,” she said. “That’s not what we have here.”

Corps contractors would use special “confined” blasting techniques, which cap the small charges to direct impacts to the rocky channel bed and greatly reduce the underwater pressure waves that can hurt marine life.

Similar techniques were used in a 2005 dredging of another section of the port and follow-up surveys of sea grass and reefs showed no damage from silting, Jordan-Sellers said.

The Corps said no manatees, dolphins or turtles were killed during blasting and an average of 14 dead fish were recovered after each of 40 rounds of blasting — most of them small bait fish. There were also no complaints of vibration or damage from residents on Fisher Island or other nearby communities, Jordan-Sellers said.