On Monday, April 13th the Palm Beach County Commission is taking up the matter of an "Inland Port and the Overlay District" the latest zoning hearing that could eventually allow thousands of acres of Everglades to be consumed for an industrial inland port facility that is not needed and certainly not in the middle of the historic Everglades. The Fanjuls are the largest family land owner in the Everglades Agricultural Area, and their influence on Florida politics-- though not the Obama administration or the Crist administration--is legendary.It is at the level of local politics where big money like the Fanjuls has always had the best hand. The planning for this project emerged as Governor Crist attempted to purchase land holdings of the Fanjul's main competitor-- not really a competitor since sugar is a controlled and subsidized crop-- US Sugar Corporation.
The point about the Fanjul properties is that a key part of their holdings are strategically located on the Everglades Boardwalk: right between publicly owned Everglades lands and the water supply to the north; Lake Okeechobee.
The entire region is badly polluted by fertilizer from sugar runoff and upstream sources of pollution, too. But if the Fanjul's plan comes to reality, as they well know, then the chances for a connection between the historic headwaters of the Everglades and the entire 2 million acres stretching to Florida Bay will be done. They only care about the Everglades if enough zeroes are attached to the end of the deal, and if the Palm Beach County Commission goes their way, then they get a step closer to forcing the issue, which has always been the issue: the value of their property relative to the value of the Everglades to the public.
Few press reports have focused on the Fanjul's high hand in the matter of a game, for purposes of Everglades restoration, now being played out by Governor Crist, the water management district, the Florida legislature, and US Sugar.
The Inland Port, of course, will also increase pressure for more development. And that's the point. Development, especially infrastructure development, begets more development. It is what drives county commissions. Tax base, tax base, tax base. Jobs, jobs, jobs. That's the story of Florida's relentless slide: short term gain, private wealth, and general disarray.
The Palm Beach County Commission should put the brakes on the Fanjul plan until the details are ironed out on the Crist plan and federal involvement, through the Obama administration, on the Everglades restoration plan. Call the Palm Beach County Commission and emphasize that what happens upstream has a profound effect on downstream interests: that would be, you and me.
9 comments:
Where is that map with the port?
It was about the dumbest thing I have ever laid eyes on.
i ran the map a while back AUGUST 21st
thanks... It certainly did not get better in the past year...
Am I seeing this correctly, the "port" is totally land-locked?
It will finish off the area's value as county land. I used to fish in Lake O growing up. What is Rodney doing to protect our lake?
There is a little steam or something that it is on...
This is not actually a "port." It is a "logistics center" like we have here in Hialeah. The idea is to have stuff come off the ships at port of miami or port everglades, and have the goods driven up 27 to this distribution center, where home depo or walmart of something would have a warehouse and would then ship the goods back down.
The interesting part is that Port Everglades and Port of Miami seem ambivalent about this, and Port of Palm Beach, who is running the show won't get much benefit at all.
The problem is that it brings industrial uses into the EAA instead of ag or restoration.
Wasn't that a similar concept to Duty Free Zone in Homestead. Of course, they may have been banking that the Air Base would become a public airport.
Nevertheless, the Homestead Duty Free Trade Zone has struggled from the beginning. It is away from the main transportation corridors and not near water to carry things in by barge or ship. Now it is slowly coming to life, but it still surrounded by a few thousand foreclosed new homes and unfinished housing developments.
So, there are no lessons learned in Palm Beach County about Dade County and it's disasters?
Everyone is determined to wipe out the Everglades aren't they?
This is just a HUGE land rezoning for PROFIT, nothing else! Our FDOT is leading the charge using YOUR TAX DOLLARS. The inland logistics center ILC represents tons and tons, MANY square miles, of concrete /impervious surface in the historic River of Grass. Huge buildings, grease, sewage, trucking parts, rubber from tires, just more general human stuff in a most sensitive ecosystem, all draining south! Why the Everglades Restoration if we just trash it? The ILC is not for the communities and will not use that workforce, but others already employed elsewhere and specially trained. That is how big companies work.
The State of Florida DOT also wants to construct a new super heavy freight line up US 27, dead center in the River of Grass, plus a new line along SR 80 from Belle Glade to WP Beach, a plan indicated...Isn't that in conflict with the rest of the FL departments???
It is EAA Agriculture land and rural and should stay that way. The Everglades Restoration should be provided the optimum flowway south from the Lake. Ag should clean up their water and stop dumping pollutants into the Everglades.
We are going to eat contaminated food and drink water from China, right? That is all we will have left to give our children. Yay.
I want to know HOW STUPID are these people and HOW COME they don't have a conscience?
Isn't there anyone left in Florida Government (and I suppose, I may as well throw in county governments) with a grain of common sense and an understanding of how they are killing the number one and two state industries as well as the people who live here?
Is the problem that so many folks move to Florida who don't have a simple understanding that the land they see is already developed for a particular use (even if it looks like barren land to them) and already has a rather important purpose in our state population's include well-being?
I am not even a tree hugger and I get it. Why can't everyone else?
I don't think anyone has any intention of actually building anything there. The rezoning is just a cheap way of upping the purchase price of this land.
I gotta hand it to the powers that be--they are very efficient wealth transfer mechanisms. For the cost *cough* of the rezoning they get an immensely more valuable piece of land to bargain with. And guess who gets to pay for this?
Gah.
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