Wednesday, January 04, 2012

The Rock Mining Law Suit. By Geniusofdespair

Please note correction: JAVIER SOUTO WAS A "NO" VOTE. Rebeca Sosa joined the bad group with a YES.


Yesterday the Miami Herald featured a fine article by Andres Viglucci on a lawsuit brought by neighbors and environmental groups against the county for approving a rock mining application in October for Shoma Homes' owner - bigwig campaign contributor Masoud Shojaee. He bought the land to develop it for sprawl housing. When the market dropped so did his dreams for another Shoma giant development. He decided to rock mine the land to get some money out of it and cut his losses so he apparently made a product purchase and sale agreement and lease for the land to Rinker (Now the Mexican company Cemex) for rock mining.

County Commission Final Vote on the Shojaee application for Santa Fe Haciendas land:
Barreiro, Bell, Bovo, Diaz, Edmonson, Heyman, Jordan, Martinez, Monestime, Sosa were all: YES to approve the stupid plan to give Cemex a special use permit.
Lakebelt Moss is referring to.

Commissioners Moss, Sosa Souto and Suarez voted NO.

Moss said about the application: that approving it could allow the mining industry to get out of control. He was concerned that “we could have another lake belt potentially in southwest Miami-Dade County.” He has a brain at least.

The lakebelt is just a bunch of holes dug to extract limestone rock for enormous profit. The land left in the lakebelt is now good for little else except providing a vehicle for bacteria and dangerous amoebas to enter the shallow aquifer and infect our drinking water.

The Herald said:
The suit, filed by attorney Robert Hartsell, contends that in doing so the commission violated the county’s own comprehensive development plan, which has set aside that land exclusively for agriculture or compatible uses. According to the suit, that means the county has violated state law, which requires localities to abide by their comprehensive plans.

Environmental Groups party to the suit are: Tropical Audubon, 1000 Friends of Florida and Clean Water Action. Charles Pattison, President and CEO of 1000 Friends of Florida, notes that “the comprehensive plan is very specific as to where it does and does not allow new mines. This approval is clearly inconsistent with the provisions of the Miami-Dade Comprehensive Master Development Plan.”

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is just part of the constant stress-testing by developers and land speculators and rock miners of new regulations and state review thanks to Gov. Rick Scott: the worst governor is modern Florida history.

Anonymous said...

Bravo to Comm.Sosa! ...consistently votes the right way!

Anonymous said...

Taking the issue to the courts is the only way to stand up for Florida's environment given the policies of the current Governor and legislature. Another important lawsuit recently filed - filed- appealing the environmental permit issued by FDEP that would allow blasting Biscayne Bay and destroying coral reefs for the Port of Miami Deep Dredge. Congratulations on the environmental groups and citizens standing up for Florida's environment and quality of life.

Anonymous said...

After all her bonehead blunders, maybe Bell will just quit like her TBaggin' heroes Palin and Bachmann.

Ms. Lynda: When the goin' gets tough, quit.

Anonymous said...

Food for thought:

Somebody asked why were we trying to recall Bell. They said, "Don't you see she is recalling herself?"

Geniusofdespair said...

Commissioner Sosa voted the WRONG way. I made a correction.

Anonymous said...

So much for the Kudos. I believe it was a ten to three vote.

Anonymous said...

One sister has monitoring wells on her land because she is near a superfund site. The other one just had a kidney removed due to cancer. We need to pay attention to this water quality stuff, folks.

JaneMiami

Anonymous said...

Hooray! It's about time! These commissioners need to be stopped!

I live in East Homestead and I have felt my house shake...more than once.

Grillo said...

I found it strange that Commissioner Souto would vote for this. Thank you, Commissioner for being on our side.

Anonymous said...

WOW! Guess people still have Balls in this town! Was this a Friends of West Kendall, same group with the full page ad?