By CURTIS MORGAN
cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com
In a move praised by environmentalists, the South Florida Water Management District’s governing board voted unanimously to begin a new study on how to use a checkerboard of 2,800 acres owned by the state and district at the southeastern junction of Krome Avenue and the Tamiami Trial.Drew Martin, of the Sierra Club, said environmentalists hope that much of the land will remain undeveloped. “It’s a nice buffer between the national park and the urban area,” he told board members during a district meeting in West Palm Beach. “We would like to see this area maintained basically as a natural area.”FIU had hoped to obtain a cost-free lease on some 350 of the state-owned acres as part of a land swap that potentially would have moved the Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition to the wetlands site so the university’s fast-growing medical school could expand into existing fairgrounds land next door. The wetlands had been purchased more than a decade ago for $3.7 million for an Everglades restoration project to store storm runoff and recharge ground water. Water manager later abandoned the plans as too expensive and ineffective. But the deal with FIU was derailed after Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Gimenez raised objections to moving the fairgrounds to the site because it is outside the county’s urban development boundary. Gov. Rick Scott later asked lawmakers to kill a proposed amendment to legislation in Tallahassee that would have given FIU control of the land, with aides saying they would continue working with the school to resolve its space crunch.Ernie Barnett, the district’s Everglades policy director, said FIU could still pursue the lands, but it was his understanding that the state was not currently planning to sell or “surplus’’ wetlands in the area.The district intends to meet with environmental groups, surrounding land owners including the Miccosukee tribe and other Everglades restoration agencies to determine how the parcels might be used.Under FIU’s proposal, much of the land, which has been used as dump site and by off-road vehicles, would have been turned into a county park surrounding the fairgrounds and a large parking lot. Environmentalists had argued the land provided foraging grounds for endangered wood storks and other wildlife, and could easily be restored.Sandy Batchelor, a board member from Miami, urged “finding a way to preserve the ecologically sensitive land. They produce such good habitat for so many animals and birds.”
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