We did it at last! We saved 145 big ole palms and 10 mature oaks, who will live on at their new address: Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge. Working in partnership with Refuge Staff and the private developer of “The Reserve†next to the refuge, Attila Holohazy of Paskor LLC, Pelican Island Preservation Society helped save and transplant these trees. They will live on as a legacy in the ongoing habitat restoration at our Nation’s First National Wildlife Refuge. See Florida Today’s story for more details.
Monthly Archive for November, 2006
Voters in Indian River County, Florida may think that their elected representatives, the County Commissioners, call the policy shots at the County, but that’s not so. Most of the time, and in most really important policy areas, it’s the long-established, hired senior staff – especially the various “department directors†who really set policy.
Most of the public, and even most of the elected officials, suppose that the bureaucrats just implement policy set by the Commissioners at public meetings. Perhaps in theory that’s the way it’s supposed to work. In practice, nothing could be further from the truth.
Our local Scripps newspaper, the Press Journal, has repeatedly asserted in editorials that our County’s elected and appointed representatives, along with County government staff, “roll over†for developers. Today, they level the following:
“If there’s a culprit beyond the vicissitudes of the almighty “free market,†it’s our compliant public officials who have skewed that market. Green-lighting sprawling new housing tracts all over the county, they rolled over for developers, opened the door to speculators, inflated residential inventories and set the stage for the hundreds of empty houses we see today.â€
It’s true the Treasure Coast is now experiencing the worst kind of growing pains. But this editorial posturing is such obvious crap it hardly needs comment. Still, I can’t resist two simple ones. First, who rolled over? Be specific and back up the charges, if they are really meant to be taken seriously. Are there certain elected or appointed individuals, or staffers who are “rolling over†for developers? And if so, are they doing tricks for all developers, are just certain ones? Names, please. If not, something else is going on, and the editors have missed the point. Again. Too bad, because what’s really happening is very, very important, and still a mystery to the Scrippsmen.
And second, what if all these folks who were supposed to have “rolled over†instead mandated a moratorium on development across the county? Would the editors then herald this action as a triumph for controlled growth? Or would the public officials get slammed for messing with the “free market.†Hmmm.
My new neighbors are building a beach house, and are putting their septic system 25 feet away from a sea turtle nesting beach. The mystery here is that in the 21st century this is perfectly legal. No problem for any of the several agencies that issue the necessary permits: the Florida Department of Health, Florida Department of Environmental Protection, and Indian River County Community Development. They all said, “OK.â€
Some of us in the ‘hood had problems with the idea that our community would allow septic swill leaching onto the nesting beach of three species of threatened and endangered sea turtles (leatherbacks, greens, and loggerheads). With the help of Pelican Island Audubon, the Surfrider Foundation, and Jonathan Gorham, Indian River County Coastal Resource Manager, we were able to get the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to take a closer look at whether new residential septic systems might pose a threat to sea turtle nests, and thus a problem under our county-wide Sea Turtle Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP).
This may seem like a no-brainer, but it really has a lot of moving parts. It will take lots of hard work, but our goal is to get all new houses on our barrier island hooked up to sewer lines, so septics don’t seep onto our beaches and reefs. The Fish and Wildlife Service may help us get there by encouraging more rigor in county permitting.
Neighbors need to do this. Block by block, town by town, county by county, state by state. Our coastal waters are especially sensitive to the effects of nutrient runoff. Nutrient pollution of nearshore waters is linked to degraded reef communities, algal blooms and red tides, and dead zones. Do you live near a coast? Do you know where your sewage goes?