Judge halts West Dade rock mining by gimleteye

Someday. Someday. Someday the history will be written about the despoiling of South Florida to accommodate private corporations associated with construction and development: who, what, and how America’s only subtropical wilderness turned into a low-scatter density froth of strip malls, useless storm-water retention ponds, and the millions of voters and taxpayers clueless that officials they elected to office presided over jeopardy to the one commodity we can’t live without: water.

And when the history is written, a major chapter will be titled, “When Judge Hoeveler ruled on rock mining in West Dade.”

Today’s story by Miami Herald reporter Curtis Morgan is terse and to the point.
See archives in eyeonmiami for other blog postings on rock mining in Miami Dade County.

Over the decades, while citizens floundered at city and county hall trying to stop suburban sprawl or high-rise condos from occupying every last piece of Miami Dade County, mining executives in helicopters flitted back and forth from downtown law offices and conference rooms, their views unimpeded by any of the concerns that riled up people, unreported for the most part by the mainstream media always attentive to the balance and contribution of the contractors and developers.

If Florida is defined by the transience of people—people always moving, in and out of state, always from somewhere else, never sinking roots much deeper than the swaying palm trees on Ocean Drive—then the very fact of transience is cemented in place by rock miners agnostic to any compelling motive or organizing principle other than profit.

This is not a harsh opinion: it is a fact. Government agencies and private corporations have failed to abide by federal law and past agreements to protect the Everglades.

In The Miami Herald report, there is considerable ruckus by the industry about job loss and threats to economic activity. Of course. What other arguments does industry have to lean on?

Reporters should closely scrutinize “An Overview of the Socio-Economic Condition of Miami-Dade County”, May 2007, by Miami-Dade Department of Planning and Zoning before printing industry claims as fact. Table 34, Employment by Industry Miami-Dade County, Page 48 shows Mining and Construction accounted for 4.2 percent of employment in 2006.

Not only is rock mining and construction of less importance to the Miami-Dade economy than advertised, there is ample evidence that the growth pattern of construction and development in South Florida is unsustainable.

The unsupportable costs are not the commodity prices of limerock or concrete: it is the low-density scatter pattern of development—essentially allowing zoning and permitting and whatever big campaign contributors from the development industry want—that lead to liar loans, mortgage fraud, and the recent implosion of the subprime credit markets.

The howls of complaint from the rock miners and pro-development forces are likely to grow louder and louder in the coming days.

This is always the case when there is any threat of impinging the economic elite and political status quo.

One can still hope that mainstream news will balance their coverage (and not just report the PR flacks for industry) with rock solid evidence that the growth model for South Florida is running on fumes due to crashing housing markets.

History will show that the greatest speculative land and housing boom in Florida history, that ended in 2005, relied in part on illegal rock mining supported by government agencies charged with protecting public health and welfare and especially those local county commissioners, like Natacha Seijas, who thumbed their noses at the public and in defiance of the law.

This remarkably difficult case, pitting a few public interest attorneys against an army of attorneys for the rock miners and an unlimited budget for litigation, totalling more than $10 million, is a career capstone for Judge William Hoeveler who persevered as a matter of loyalty to bedrock federal laws that special interests persistently challenge and seek to erode.