Sorensen's legacy likely to unbridle development
State Rep. Ken
Sorensen, R-Key Largo, wants to leave a legacy in the Florida Keys.
He wants to free this
environmentally unique county of islands from the restraints of state
oversight and put environmentalists in the unemployment line.
Sorensen's goal is
local control of, among other things, development. Now there's a scary
thought.
Our man in Tallahassee
has introduced legislation that would remove the Keys' designation as an
Area of Critical State Concern.
For 30 years, that
designation has protected the Keys from the kind of overdevelopment and
unbridled growth that continues to plague mainland Florida. We need not
look farther than Florida City to illustrate this point. Agricultural
areas along Florida's Turnpike are being displaced at an alarming rate
by far-flung vistas of cookie-cutter houses.
For 30 years, the
state has prodded Monroe County to protect its marine and terrestrial
environments, to provide adequate affordable housing to its residents
and ensure that citizens would be able to evacuate when threatened by
hurricanes. And for 30 years, one Monroe County Commission after another
has fought the state tooth and nail. Year after year, county government
has been dragged, kicking and screaming, into compliance with its own
land-use plan.
A good example of the
county's lack of progress is wastewater.
At one point in the
late '90s, after a series of flip-flop votes by the County Commission,
the governor and state Cabinet threatened to withhold nearly $10 million
in tax revenue if commissioners didn't pass an ordinance calling for the
elimination of cess pools, which had been illegal in Florida for half a
century. By that time, Keys taxpayers already had paid for at least four
different wastewater master plans commissioned by the county — all of
which gather dust on shelves somewhere in county offices. Finally, in
2005, the county's first sewer treatment project on Stock Island became
the object of a scathing grand jury report that described the County
Commission's handling of the project as "negligent" and "incompetent."
Most of the county remains unsewered today.
It is interesting to
note that Mr. Sorensen began his stint in the state House in denial of
sewage-related nearshore water pollution. He claimed there was no "good
science" proving that cesspits and septic tanks caused pollution. He
never made it clear why the existing science, which clearly demonstrated
the connection, was not "good" science, and he eventually found it
politically expedient to change his position.
Sorensen now is doing
his best in Tallahassee to discredit the Keys environmental community —
particularly Debra Harrison of the World Wildlife Fund, who has
frequently and eloquently addressed the governor and state Cabinet on
Keys environmental and land-use matters.
"If this bill passes,
we will kill a cottage industry and Ms. Harrison will have to find
another place to work," he recently told the state Senate Community
Affairs Committee.
That "cottage
industry" — environmental activism — has a long and respected history in
the Keys. For instance, the late Dagny Johnson was instrumental in
preventing 12,000 acres of natural hammock in North Key Largo from
becoming Port Bougainville, a 2,800-unit development. The tract, one of
the nation's last remaining tropical hardwood hammocks, contains 75 to
80 native plant species — more than the entire Great Smokey Mountains.
We find it ironic that
it was Sorensen who sponsored legislation renaming the site the Dagny
Johnson Key Largo Hammock Botanical State Park, and who served as the
master of ceremonies at the dedication.
Environmentalists —
and government oversight — also prevented development of sites that are
now Windley Key Quarry State Geological Site and Curry Hammock State
Park.
More recently, the
state has refused to allow the sitting Monroe County Commission to make
changes to its Tier System for protecting environmentally sensitive
land. Those changes would have made more land available for development.
According to a recent
survey conducted by Lake Research Partners, a reputable national public
opinion research firm, 82-percent of Keys residents oppose lifting the
Critical Concern designation. The cities of
Key West
and Islamorada have withheld their support of the legislation, and two
of the five county commissioners now oppose dedesignation.
It seems there are
many in Monroe County who fear Sorensen's legacy would be the ultimate
destruction of the Florida Keys' environment, quality of life and
long-term economic health. We concur. By handing the growth-management
reins to a local governing body that historically has been politically
invertebrate, the Keys stand to lose the very things that have made them
unique and that form the backbone of their economy.
— The Citizen
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