The League of Women Voters of Miami Dade County (LWVMD) strongly opposes the construction and maintenance of an antennae and access road across the Bird Drive Basin. This area, also known as the Bird Drive Recharge Area (BDRA), was identified during the 836 Extension proceedings as a critical wetlands, recharge area for the Biscayne Aquifer and a significant component to CERP restoration efforts. Further, constructing a maintenance road for this antenna, with culverts and other components will impede the BDRA's natural flow and recharge benefits, and is inconsistent with future CERP Restoration efforts.

Thank you,
Diane Lockwood
Environmental Chair, LWVMD

I write to request that you reject or defer item 28 on your agenda. This item grants the applicant a non-exclusive easement for the construction, installation, operation, replacement, repair and maintenance of the antennae Improvements to be constructed on the property including, but not limited to, constructing, reconstructing, laying, installing, operating, maintaining, relocating, repairing, replacing, improving, removing and inspecting the private drives, culverts and other systems allowing for the drainage and flow of water, and for vehicular and pedestrian ingress and egress access in, on, over, across, through and upon the property for the purpose of providing both vehicular and pedestrian access to and from Krome Avenue and the property. This easement over the Access Tract permits the maintenance and repair of the Access Tract and the Antennae Improvements
constructed thereon by the applicant.

I served as counsel for the Tropical Audubon Society and Michelle Garcia in the recent administrative trial concerning Miami-Dade County’s comprehensive plan amendment to authorize an extension of State Road 836 across the Bird Drive Recharge Area. During that trial, Miami-Dade County cited this particular project radio tower project as demonstrating that the District had abandoned using the Bird Drive Recharge Area in connection with CERP. Specifically, the County Attorney said this project demonstrates that “the agency responsible with implementing CERP and this particular project is allowing a project to be built within the footprint of this conveyance concept” and that therefore the highway extension was also consistent with CERP. (Trial Tr. at 1383-84.)

Conveyance of this easement, which permits construction of a road across an area of the BDRA and commits the District to ensuring in perpetuity pedestrian and vehicular access to the antenna, will continue to be cited as inconsistent with CERP because it is. At an irreducible minimum, the District must require any road improvements through the area to be bridged to a level that would allow flooding of the area for water storage and aquifer recharge as initially planned. Failure to include these requirements now will foreclose the options available to the District in the future to use the area as initially envisioned for CERP.

Thank you in advance for your attention to this matter.