EPA says Kendall Parkway poses risk of `unacceptable adverse’ impacts to Everglades
Federal environmental regulators have joined critics of Miami-Dade’s proposal to run a major freeway through wetlands, saying the plan to construct the Kendall Parkway poses “substantial and unacceptable adverse secondary impacts to the Greater Everglades.”
In a letter last week to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the Environmental Protection Agency said a six-lane toll in West Kendall would produce direct impacts to 350 acres of freshwater wetlands in the Bird Drive Basin, an area that’s key to guaranteeing drinking water for Miami and the Florida Keys. The EPA considers the area an “aquatic resource of national importance.“
The questions from the EPA are only the latest hurdles for a project that already under fire from legal challenges, political disputes and forecasts that traffic improvements would be limited.
The letter was sent in response to a permit application to build over the wetlands by Miami-Dade Expressway Authority, or MDX, the county toll agency that proposed the roadway.
In the Aug. 23 letter, the EPA said that MDX proposal came up short of analysis on several fronts: There was not sufficient information on alternatives to minimize environmental impacts. The agency had failed to show that the project complies with environmental regulation that would allow for the degradation of wetlands. The EPA also asked MDX to explain if it had considered the effects from potential induced development in the areas that surround the proposed highway.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is in the midst of reviewing MDX’s application to build over protected wetlands. Public comments closed on Aug. 23. The Corps will make the final decision on issuing a permit.
Javier Rodriguez, the MDX director, downplayed the letter during a meeting of the board Tuesday, only the second since a Florida judge reinstated the government agency after a new state law dissolved it for a new toll board called the Greater Miami Expressway Agency. The law, signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis and backed by Miami-Dade Republicans in Tallahassee, is suspended pending an appeal of the Aug. 9 lower-court decision that declared the legislation unconstitutional.
Rodriguez said the MDX can provide EPA administrators the information needed to answer questions raised by the regulator. “They basically asked for information. We have that information,” Rodriguez said. “Our study effectively addresses all the concerns they have.”
The EPA letter draws the latest fault line in a highway debate that has divided some of Miami-Dade’s most prominent Republicans. On the one side is county Mayor Carlos Gimenez, the MDX’s appointed chairman who has led the charge to win county approval of the highway and tried to rally public support behind the $1 billion effort.
On the other is U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, who got his political start in Miami and touted the EPA’s letter in a Twitter post over the weekend all but declaring the 836 project dead. “Without EPA concurrence,” Rubio wrote, the Army Corps “will not approve #CleanWaterAct permits for #KendallParkway construction in Bird Road Basin.”
Gimenez questioned the confrontational role his fellow Republican has taken toward the 836 extension while not objecting to a trio of new toll roads approved by the Florida legislature this year for Florida. “He’s very focused on the Kendall Parkway, but he’s not focused at all on hundreds of miles of highway running through environmentally sensitive land,” Gimenez said during a break in the meeting. Rubio’s office had no immediate comment.
Bird Drive Basin was once part of the Shark River Slough, the main artery for water flow in the Everglades. It’s used to recharge the region’s shallow Biscayne aquifer, the only drinking water source for communities in Miami-Dade and Miccosukee Tribe. It’s also home to native animals, wading birds and rare plants.
“Freshwater wetlands are essential to the region because they provide important water quality and wildlife benefits, and serve as a filtration system that protect bodies of water,” Jeaneanne Gettle, Director of EPA’s Water Division in Atlanta, wrote in the letter.
Because of its key location and the functions that it serves, Bird Drive Basin is part of the Everglades Restoration Plan, and was earmarked for restoration work to reestablish water flow south through the river of grass. Much of that land is already owned by the South Florida Water Management District and the U.S. Department of the Interior. The Miccosukee also own land acquired to restore the tribe’s historic homelands.
Environmentalists and a developer sued MDX and Miami-Dade, arguing the project would violate the county’s growth management plan. They warned that allowing the road to get so close to the Everglades would encourage more suburban sprawl and development that could endanger protected wetlands.
South Florida water managers and the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had already raised red flags over the lack of details about the impact of the road on natural resources, water supply and flood control.
This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 3:55 PM.