Greater Pine Island Civic Association
Results of the October 31st Hearing
If the parties before the Special Magistrate are unable to agree,which is certain to be the case, the Special Master is allowed to draft a recommendation which he will forward to the County Commissioners for review.
After two full days of testimony, the hearing on the proposed "farm worker housing" complex was completed. There was only a single speaker in favor of the project. There were dozens against, and while there were many, many reasons given as to why this project should not go forward, most speakers seemed to agree that this there was absolutely not needed and was nothing more than "an end run around the Pine Island Plan". The developer's own experts admitted, in testimony, that all current farm workers on Pine Island already live on Pine Island and that the developer hopes to take rental business away from existing places to move farmworkers and their families into their project. It was argued that, even if this were to be successful, it would violate the concurrency provisions of the Pine Island Plan because the existing landlords would have to advertise for tenants from off island, thus increasing both the traffic counts as well as contributing to overcrowding problems at Pine Island Elementary.
Recordings of the hearing will be available about April 28th or so for $8 per tape or dvd, if available. A court reporter transcript will be available at 15 cents per page when completed. It is expected to be many pages long.
Below is an email from the local Director of South Florida Water Management District to Phil Buchanan explaining SFWMD's finding re: Willow Lake, Dr. Buchanan's reply, and a pdf file you can download of a letter to Treeco explaining SFWMD's finding. From: "Flood, Phil" <pflood@sfwmd.gov> Mr. Buchanan, I’m not sure if you had seen the District’s proposed settlement for the Notice of Violation for the Willow Lake property. As a result of the District’s investigation, we found that approximately 6 acres of wetlands had been impacted. The terms of the proposed settlement require that the permittee submit and receive approval of a mitigation plan to restore the wetlands impacted, implement said plan, and pay a civil penalty of $35,100 and $5,000 for staff investigative costs. Attached is a copy of the proposed settlement. Phil Flood Phil Buchanan's reply: To: "Flood, Phil" <pflood@sfwmd.gov> I will circulate a copy of your proposed settlement to the Greater Pine Island Civic Association members and other interested parties on Pine Island. I think they will in the main be pleased with the work of you and your staff. The GPICA will provide formal comments after reviewing your proposal and the landowners response. Of course, the heart of the settlement will be the restoration or mitigation plan. It will be extremely difficult (some say impossible) to restore a swamp that mother nature took thousands of years to build, nonetheless, we have little choice but to try as best we can. I would like to see as broad an input as possible go into the restoration plan, including some of the notable experts we have in South Florida. Thanks, Protection of the environment is primarily a federal and state law matter, and county governments are generally preempted from passing laws on those subjects. Nonetheless, Lee County commissioners and staff have been striving to do what they can about the destruction of Willow Lake. The Environmental Sciences Division has provided some excellent comments to SFWMD about the woefully inadequate restoration proposal submitted by the developer, and the County Attorney's Office has been tasked with determining what county ordnances, if any, were violated. The landowner and his attorney have denied that Willow Lake existed. However, they do concede that a 1.45-acre surface water body (pond) existed at that location. The landowner has presented a restoration plan by which he would restore the 1.45-acre pond plus a 1.52-acre buffer area. We have advised SFWMD that a 1.45-acre pond (with 1.52-acre buffer) is not an adequate replacement for a 6 to 7 acre swamp (with 2-acre buffer). Copies of both the developer’s restoration plan and GPICA comments on the plan will be posted on this website. Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection (FDEP): Dan VanNorman 332-6975 ext 136 dan.vannorman@dep.state.fl.us Army Corps of Engineers (ACOE): Cynthia Ovdenk 334-1975 ext 24 cynthia.d.ovdenk@usace.army.mil
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 22:14:43 +0000
Director Lower West Coast
South Florida Water Management District
Subject: Re: Willow Lake
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 23:44:51 +0000
Thank you, Sir. I very much appreciate the work of your office on this matter, and the conclusions drawn by your investigation are well-founded. The finding that some six acres of wetlands were destroyed is in my view accurate.
Phil Buchanan
South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD): 338-2929: Phil Flood, extension 7768 pflood@sfwmd.gov ; Mark White, extension 7792 mwhite@sfwmd.gov ; and Susan Sanders, extension 7295 ssanders@sfwmd.gov
And, of course, our own Lee County Commissioners:
Bob Janes 533-2224 dist1@leegov.com
Brian Bigelow 533-2227 dist2@leegov.com
Ray Judah 533-2223 dist3@leegov.com
Tammy hall 533-2226 dist4@leegov.com
Frank Mann 533-2225 dist5@leegov.com
The entire Willow Lake area has been completely and totally filled-in and laser-leveled. There is not a tree or bush left standing. Willow Lake was a seasonal fresh-water lake and the only natural fresh water body on Pine Island. It covered more than six acres and was protected by jurisdictional wetlands laws. It contained what was alledgedly the largest stand of willow in Southern Florida and was surrounded by grubbed oak hammocks and oak and swamp fern hammocks and constituted, in my opinion, the single most diverse and environmentally-sensitive habitat on Pine Island. It was the only habitat on Pine Island suitable for scrub jays. Now it is nothing but perfectly level dirt and piles of dead vegetation.
Read the Environmental Report from 1990 on Willow Lake and the surrounding area and judge for yourself the seriousness of the damage that has been done...download it below
See the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Wetlands map of the Willow Lake area
More proof that Willow Lake was a wetland comes to us from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. They maintain a web site called the Wetlands Mapper which is done as a service to governmental agencies nationwide. You can visit the site at http://wetlandsfws.er.usgs.gov/wtlnds/launch.html. Once there, click anywhere on the map of the continental U.S., then, on the next map that comes up, draw a little rectangle around our area on the state of Florida with your mouse. Using the same method, you can zoom in to the area in question south of Alcorn Street (south of the Catholic Church). Once zoomed in you will see a large green area labeled "PSS3A". If you toggle the map legend you will see that the area is referred to as "Freshwater Forrested/Shrub Wetland".
