I want to thank all the attendees and speakers who participated in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing in Homestead, opening up the process for a valid community discussion.Mayors Cindy Lerner, Paul Vrooman and I spoke on several points regarding the impacts of the FPL transmission lines along the US1 corridor, both at the hearing as well as a day earlier during a government to government meeting.
These comments included multiple concerns. The first is the adverse economic impact these lines bring. The second is the efforts we are making on an alternative transmission line siting. The third is our joint efforts in leading the charge to reduce the need for creation of additional power and jobs, through conservation and the “green corridor.”
Many Miami-Dade communities have worked well together to develop plans for a livable business corridor running down the spine of the county’s population center. The proposed FPL lines have the potential to turn US1 from a designed transit and mixed use corridor creating jobs and smart growth designed amenities of the future merely into a power corridor with no future at all. Cases in Point:
The Franjo Triangle/US1 Commercial Island district; the Cutler Bay Charrettes; the US1 Busway studies and Downtown Kendall have all been efforts to redirect our economy, bring jobs to the area and generate relief to the west from urban sprawl. The viability of these areas planned commercial and residential areas will be detrimentally impacted FPL’s 230 kw power transmission towers along US1.
The job creation estimate from the FPL project is 800 permanent jobs. Quality jobs are needed, but not at the expense of the thousands of quality jobs that will be created by the properly planned growth of economic and residential centers that have been carefully planned for the US1 transit corridor. The best way to get commuters on the busway and to Metrorail is by having them reside close enough to where they never need to get into their individual cars in the first place. Creating employment destinations along the transit corridor encourages mass transit as it alleviates the need for an extended car commute for the employees.
The road to realization of these carefully planned improvements is now seemingly blocked by the FPL transmission plans.
Local governments have no authority over transmission line siting. That issue is handled through a process before an administrative law judge and, potentially, ultimately determined by the Florida Cabinet. The Transmission Line Siting Act (TLSA) is Florida’s centralized process for licensing electrical transmission lines for FPL's proposed 230 kv lines. This process does not require a Land Use and Zoning hearing for transmission line siting. Parties to the TLSA proceeding can propose corridors alternate in location to the ones proposed by FPL. After review, alternate corridors may be the one certified for actual use. In anticipation of this siting review, my fellow local officials and I met in Tallahassee with members of the Florida Cabinet and agencies such as the DEP last April.
Recently, the Councils of Palmetto Bay and Pinecrest have passed resolutions authorizing their respective village managers to negotiate agreements with an engineering firm to complete our alternate transmission corridor study. The goal is to identify an alternative corridor, taking these huge power transmission poles and their effects away from US1, our Main Street in South Miami-Dade.
The Mayors and councils/commissions of South Miami, Pinecrest, Palmetto Bay and Cutler Bay have been hard at work for more than a year fighting for smart growth and properly planned development. Not only through the various charrettes and studies, but by working on an exciting new program which has become known as the “Green Corridor.” I invite everyone to research this program further, but the 4 municipalities (as well as commissioner Sorenson) have spent significant time in planning and advocating for the Florida Legislature to enact the PACE legislation – which it did as the last piece of legislation to pass moments before the conclusion of this last year’s legislative session. This legislation will provide a voluntary program to fund the installation of alterative energy, e.g. solar power devices on homes which will not only cut the power bills of the participants, but more importantly, will conserve and stretch the current power grid capacity, thus reducing the need for creation of additional power production.
This green corridor will create significant and well-paying jobs in the development and installation/building industries – significantly more than 800 jobs.
But these jobs, these opportunities, will never be realized if we shift the focus from the well thought out plans and divert the use of the US1 corridor to a high power transmission line corridor marked by 80-120 foot transmission towers.
Keeping the FPL lines as planned will only serve to drive development elsewhere, adding to the westward sprawl that so many people have worked so hard to prevent. Poor planning of the 20th century has given way to smart growth strategies, yet we have not improved upon the delivery of electrical power. Why is it that we are still hanging lines on huge concrete or metal towers? It is time to create additional jobs through development of safer, more aesthetically pleasing and more efficient methods (including reducing power loss in the lines) of transmitting power, new technology to solve these issues into the 21st century.
I know there is more to this issue than power lines gutting the hope of planned and viable economic growth in the heart of the district’s business centers. There are the issues of environmental degradation, and salt water intrusion. Perhaps the most critical concern of all is making sure that our residents are safe and educated about the future of our County.
