Posted on January 17, 2017
By Zach Murdock, Herald-Tribune
Sarasota County leaders did not want to be “obstructionists” when they chose, without discussion, earlier this week not to appeal state environmental officials’ decision to advance the controversial dredging of Big Pass.
An appeal would have injected the county into the hotly disputed project at a time when it really did not have the jurisdiction to do so, regardless of Siesta Key leaders’ requests to step in, county commissioners said late this week.
Instead, the County Commission needs to let the lengthy process to initiate the plan run its course through the numerous reviews it needs, including one eventual county approval, they said.
“What recourse do we have right now? None,” Commissioner Nancy Detert said. “It’s not our decision to make anyway, so all we can do at this point is to be obstructionists.
“If our role is to obstruct, all we’re doing is hurting the Lido side because our erosion is going to continue,” she said. “That’s not a good way to respond to a crisis, to just drag the crisis out longer.”
The proposed project led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and city of Sarasota, not the county, calls for dredging up to 1.2 million cubic yards of sand from the pass to rebuild more than 1.5 miles of Lido Key beach. But the plan has been criticized for years by Siesta residents and groups that fear changes to the channel could harm their key’s iconic beaches, pitting them against neighbors on Lido and city officials.
Siesta Key leaders have repeatedly turned to the county to try to force more reviews of the project, and they had hoped again last week that the county would join in the appeals of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Dec. 22 “notice of intent” to issue a permit for the project.
But the county staff reviewed the permit, which includes specific monitoring criteria of the beach and the county-owned Ted Sperling Park at the south end of the key, and recommended the commission take no action.
The county also must eventually consider a planned staging area for the project at Ted Sperling Park. But that application will come later in the process before construction begins, interim planning director Matt Osterhoudt told the commission. Even if the county denied that application, it would only require staging be moved – not halt the project, he added.
The commission followed Osterhoudt’s recommendation Tuesday, but surprisingly did not even discuss the issue, aside from one earlier question from Detert.
But new commission Chairman Paul Caragiulo and Detert both said the commission can’t simply appeal just to appease Siesta residents at the potential expense of Lido, or vice versa.
“How does an elected official decide who to side with in a situation like this?” Caragiulo said. “The sand doesn’t know the geography or have a feeling about who it is or isn’t supporting.
“When you have difficult decisions – in this case it’s a decision not to do anything – let it go through its paces,” he continued. “If you’re constantly injecting at different points all these other things, how does it help? I think the overall goal is to find some workable way to make this work for the entire community. This is just one chapter, and there’s going to be many more chapters.”
Commissioner Mike Moran agreed, noting that both keys are major economic drivers for the county and that the commission juggles numerous stakeholders in the midst of the heated debate.
Attempts to reach commissioners Alan Maio and Charles Hines were unsuccessful, but each also has previously discussed the need for the county to at least remain active in helping plan some kind of immediate aid for Lido beaches if the Army Corps project is delayed.
The commission had been anything but quiet on the issue over the past 18 months. Early last year commissioners received their own consultant’s review of the project, which raised serious questions about the Army Corps plan, and voted unanimously last August to ask the agency to conduct a new environmental review, which the corps declined.
All that discussion helped refine the project’s stipulations, county leaders and City Manager Tom Barwin have said.
Now the Florida Wildlife Federation, Save our Siesta Sand 2 and the Siesta Key Association will proceed with their appeals against the project, but without a partner appeal from the county.
But county commissioners and administrators will continue to monitor the project and remain an active part of discussions, even though there wasn’t much of one last week, Caragiulo and other commissioners said.
“It was a natural follow up to what occurred over the summer, and it certainly isn’t over,” Caragiulo said. “We’ll be hearing about this again.”
Source: Herald-Tribune
