FDOT Staff Finally Admits ‘No Build’ Option Exists For Rural Toll Road

Members of the public frequently pushed for the “no build” alternative during early in the meetings of the task force appointed to study the proposed corridor between Polk and Collier counties.

Legislative leaders and the road-building lobby envisioned a new toll road cutting through this rural expanse to open someone’s land for development under the guise of improving hurricane evacuation and providing broadband service to rural areas.

In those early meetings, though, state transportation officials pushed back on any thought that the “no build” option should not even be on the table.

At this week’s latest meeting, FDOT officials finally acknowledged that any honest evaluation of both the need and the financial feasibility of any new road would have to include the “no build” option.

Whether that really means anything will become clearer after the task force wraps up its work and issues recommendations and the implementation falls to FDOT staff to implement.

The “no build” option is always a listed on any of these road schemes, but usually only in theory when there’s either enough political pressure or a real need for the project.

 

 

 

Polk Commissioners Debate Esthetics Of Planned Garbage Mountain

A proposal to allow the county landfill to eventually rise as high as a 38-story building generated a lot of discussion during a public hearing before the County Commission Tuesday.

The proposal involved allowing the landfill to expand as high as 480 feet above sea level, which is higher than any natural feature in Florida.

According to engineers hired to support the proposal, the project would be somewhat lower than the eventual height of some of the phosphate waste piles in the Bartow-Mulberry area and would provide capacity for garbage for the next 100 to 150 years.

Ana Wood, Polk’s director of waste and recycling, said one impetus for the request was a population projection that would put Polk’s population at 1 million in the near future, adding the extra capacity would also give Polk space to dispose of waste if there were another natural disaster such as serious hurricane.

Commissioner Martha Santiago asked whether that increased capacity might attract trash from adjacent counties. Wood said that would be up to commissioners.

Commissioner Bill Braswelll argued the plan allows for good planning, but there may be alternatives in the future, though he didn’t name any.

Commissioner George Lindsey, the lone dissenter in the vote, questioned whether having a trash pile that high is appropriate to be located along the Polk Parkway, one of the gateways to the county.

The other gateways to Polk County along Interstate 4 are dominated by a heavy equipment auction yard and an industrial park.

 

Polk To Revise Septage & Sludge Regs

Later this year the Polk County Commission will consider a revised ordinance regulating the disposal of treated septic tank and sewer plant wastes.

The current ordinance dates to 1995 and has not been updated since.

The revision appears to be in response to complaints from rural residents about odor and esthetic problems in connection with current disposal practices and to update language to reflect changes in county government organization and inflation.

The proposed changes will increase the surety bond from $10,000 to $50,000 to cover the cost of any environmental damage or health effects improper disposal causes.

Additionally, the proposed ordinance would increase the setback between disposal areas and homes from 500 feet to 1,320 feet. The ordinance also includes setbacks from drinking water wells and irrigation wells.

Enforcement will be by county code enforcement officers or the Polk County Sheriff’s Office.

 

 

Toll Roads Drawing Increased Criticism; Florida Taxwatch Report Raises Questions About Costs, Rationale

The scheme to divert taxpayer money to build a trio of lobbyist-inspired toll roads between the edge of the Everglades to the edge of the Okefenokee Swamp is drawing criticism from a prominent player in Florida government oversight.

Florida TaxWatch issued a 32-page report questioning the logic of building the extension of the Suncoast Parkway in particular and two other toll roads in general.

The law ordering the roads to be built was law was “passed before an analysis of the need for, or the impacts of, these new roads was completed,” Florida TaxWatch’s report said, a conclusion critics in the environmental and growth-management community reached at the time the legislation was being considered last year, adding “Moving forward with such a major, costly project with so many legitimate objections, without fully studying it (or even studying it at all), raises significant concerns.”

Additionally, Florida Taxwatch’s report points out that the projects costs are unknown since no one knows what the exact route will be, forcing the organization to undertake its analysis based on the costs of other Florida toll road projects.

Additionally, the lack of analysis on the need for the project also raises the possibility that the roads’ construction and operating costs may have to be subsidized by revenue from other toll road projects or from other state transportation funds, diverting funds from other, better-documented transportation needs.

The unknown costs include not only the costs of construction, design and right-of-way purchases, but also the costs of issuing bonds to finance whatever the costs turn out to be, Florida TaxWatch’s report says.

That’s because the projects could potentially increase the size of the state’s toll road system by two-thirds.

In the past, state transportation officials have scrapped proposed toll road projects that are not projected to be financially feasible.

The legislation that ordered the construction of these projects did not give transportation officials that discretion.

Meanwhile, task force meetings continue—the next meeting involving the corridor between Polk and Collier counties is scheduled for Thursday—with a goal of presenting a final report to the Florida Legislature by Nov. 15.

For the latest information on projects, go to https://floridamcores.com/ and follow the links.

To read Florida TaxWatch’s report, go to https://floridataxwatch.org/Press-Room and follow the links.

Additionally, 1000 Friends of Florida has performed extensive analysis of the projects. View its analysis at https://1000fof.org/m-cores/ .

 

 

 

 

 

Permit Restrictions, Mediation Loom Over Polk Water Cooperative

This week members of the Polk County Regional Water Cooperative learned that the current permits city and county utilities have now will be reduced within the next couple of years and the chance of ever getting a permit to tap the Upper Floridan Aquifer any further will be slim to none.

The news was not unexpected because regional water managers have been talking about restrictions for some time after determining the aquifer has been pretty much tapped out.

However, board members didn’t seen concrete figures until documenting the reductions until recently.

That means any additional water demand to meet future growth will have to come from somewhere else.

In other words, the end of the relatively unlimited development water pipeline is within sight.

When exactly this will take effect is hard to answer.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the water management districts, is in the process of adopting new administrative rules that will establish the new restrictions. They are scheduled to be adopted in September.

However, it is likely the rule will face legal challenges that may take time to resolve.

Some parts of the presentation to the PRWC board Wednesday afternoon sent mixed messages about water scarcity.

One of the centerpieces of the new rules is to reduce per-capita water consumption to 100 gallons per day.

However, if a utility—or more precisely its customers—don’t take that conservation goal seriously, not to worry.

All utilities have to do is to submit a plan to correct the problem, but they have 20 years to fix it.

Water officials on this week’s video presentation acknowledged it may take time to implement effective e conservation measures.

However, there’s a big difference between not being able to do something overnight and being given a generation to fix it.

You have to wonder what the cumulative impact of the water wasted all of those years will amount to.

The only real hammer is that these utilities’ water withdrawal permits will be capped at less than they are now and if people waste water, there will be no water available for new customers, so that could take care of itself if the development lobby has any say in the process.

The other question is how the exemptions built into the rules will be applied. Is it proper to transfer the water used for a now-abandoned citrus grove, for instance, to a public utility to continue business as usual or should the water allocation be canceled to allow the aquifer to recover?

Most of the focus on the future has been devoted to looking at alternative water sources. The primary projects involve tapping the deeper, poorer-quality section of the aquifer, treating it and pumping it to utility customers at a higher price than what they’re paying now.

However, there is some dissent among cooperative members about who should pay for the projects. One project is in eastern Polk County. The other project is in western Polk. The dispute revives the perennial issue of the geographic divide between the two sections of this sprawling county.

Board members are scheduled to meet later this month to discuss hiring a mediator. That will delay a decision, which has raised the question of whether the water board members can resolve their differences in time for the Southwest Florida Water Management District’s Governing Board to consider continued funding for the co-operative’s alternative water projects.

In the past some Swiftmud board members have had little patience with Polk officials when they thought they were not cooperating with the agency. This occurred last in 2008 over the Peace River permit dispute.

The funding for Polk’s alternative water projects is contained in an agreement between Swiftmud and the PRWC, but if Polk wanted to renegotiate the agreement to allow the board to work out its differences, it’s unclear what Swiftmud’s reaction would be.

As PRWC board members were reminded, the makeup of the Swiftmud board changes and that may change their decision-making. It is worth noting that Gov. Ron DeSantis has not filled a long-standing vacancy for one of the two Polk County seats on the 13-member board, which at the moment has only nine members.

 

 

 

Five Years Later, BS Ranch Odor Complaints Persist; DeSantis DEP Does Nothing To Improve Things

It has been five years since the BS Ranch project began excepting all types of hazardous waste to produce so-called soil at its plant in an industrial facility on the outskirts of Lakeland.

The odor problems that were raised then continue now.

We were hopeful that the result of a Florida Department of Environmental Protection lawsuit would produce results. The settlement called for the installation or odor-control technology. That apparently has not occurred.

There are three possible explanations for this.

The system was never installed.

The system was not installed properly.

The system didn’t work as advertised.

Whatever the reason it is another failure of the continued weak-kneed environmental regulation that has been a hallmark of the recent Republican administrations in Tallahasee.

A code enforcement case filed by Polk County remains unresolved for reasons that remain unclear. The hearing was in December and a ruling remains unsigned.

Meanwhile, residents and business owners continue to suffer the results of this lackluster environmental oversight typical of the current weak environmental regulatory regime in Tallahassee under our so-called “environmental” governor. Ron DeSantis has been a disappointment. That’s really no surprise since he has turned into a Trump toady.

It may take a successful election to oust Trump before we see any improvement.

In the meantime, the people suffer.

June Was Hotter and Drier Than Average In This Part of Florida

The numbers are in and it was not a good month to trying to survive outdoors, according to figures compiled by the National Weather Service for our area.

There were no record-breaking temperatures, but temperatures in many places were above average.

Rainfall was slightly below normal in many places and probably would have been farther below normal except for rainfall in early June from Tropical Storm Cristobal.

Here’s a summary from major cities within Ancient Islands area. Average temperature and rainfall are in parentheses, followed by the year records were first kept.

Arcadia: 80.9 (80.2) ; 8.21 in. (9.1 in) 1899

Bartow: 81.9 (81.9) ; 8.26 in (7.24) 1892

Lakeland: 82.9 (80.8); 6.82 in (8.02) 1915

Wauchula: 80.9 (82.1); 7.5 in. (8.07) 1933

Winter Haven: 83.4 (82); 6.09 in. (7.71) 1941

The absence of presence of rainfall directly affects the Peace River, which flows through much of the area, because its flow is rainfall dependent in the absence of artesian flow due to the lowering of the regional water table.

Here’s a summary of river flow at selected spots today. Average flows for this date is in parentheses. Figures are in cubic feet per second.

Bartow at SR 60: 86.8 (220)

Fort Meade: 137 (245)

Zolfo Springs: 316 (812)

Arcadia: 515 (1650)