In a 15-3 decision last week, the Palm Beach Metropolitan Planning Organization approved the Florida Department of Transportation’s new five-year work program, which included moving $50 million for the State Road 7 extension from 2019 up to 2017.
Originally approved for 2016, the FDOT moved the financing to 2020 last year in anticipation of a lawsuit from the City of West Palm Beach.
West Palm Beach, which has long opposed the extension of SR 7 to Northlake Blvd., had a cadre of lawyers and city officials, led by Mayor Jeri Muoio, at the Oct. 15 meeting. The discussion lasted about two hours, while those for and against traded points of view.
Leaders from the western communities were successful in getting the start date moved back to 2017, but West Palm Beach officials said that they will continue to fight the extension, which they allege will endanger the city’s water supply.
The long-planned extension runs between the Grassy Waters Preserve and the Ibis Golf & Country Club, which was annexed into West Palm Beach in 1989. The development is also where Muoio lives.
The 4-mile extension is considered by leaders in the western communities — particularly Royal Palm Beach and The Acreage — to be essential not only as an evacuation route, but also to create a key transportation link that has been missing for decades.
The latest round of objections from West Palm Beach were based on a letter from the Environmental Protection Agency to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers raising objections to the project, but Indian Trail Improvement District Supervisor Michelle Damone, who is the point person on the SR 7 extension for the Western Communities Council, said that the letter is not a project killer.
“They received a letter from the EPA just letting them know there was environmental impact,” Damone said. “They were using the MPO to try to garner some votes to convince us that this road shouldn’t be constructed and should be stopped on environmental issues.”
Damone was happy that the MPO didn’t buy it. “It was another West Palm Beach shenanigan,” she said. “The letter was just routine. The Federal Highway Administration still supports the road, and the funding is in place.”
Damone noted that FDOT Secretary Jim Boxold’s parents live in Royal Palm Beach, and he is familiar with the area and the need for the road. She added that the Western Communities Council sent a letter to Boxold thanking him for his support on the road.
“As long as the MPO kept State Road 7 as a priority, which is what the vote was about, the funding is in place, and that is what it was truly about,” she said.
Damone added that West Palm Beach continues to threaten to litigate, but has not done so as of yet. Anticipation of litigation by the city was the basis for the FDOT to push funding to 2020 originally.
“They wrote a letter of intent to litigate and they haven’t,” Damone said. “Eventually, they probably will, and it will simply be a stall tactic to try and defund the construction dollars for the north end of the reliever road.”
At the MPO meeting, attorney Robert Diffenderfer, representing the Western Communities Council, presented a letter to the MPO explaining that it was important to understand the context of the EPA’s letter to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“The corps is closing out the comment period following publication of the public notice for the permit,” Diffenderfer explained. “The EPA is a comment agency in that process… The letter reflects the EPA’s comments based upon their review of the public notice and other sources. I would note that the EPA letter does contain some inaccuracies.”
Diffenderfer also noted that the EPA does not issue the permit and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is solely responsible for making the final permit decision.
“The corps is not obligated to concur with the EPA’s opinion,” he wrote. “The corps will consider the EPA’s opinion, as it considers all other public comment, and make a determination on the permit in accordance with its own view of the action, the facts, and application of the law and regulations.”
Damone said that she thinks many people are frustrated with the tactics being employed by West Palm Beach, which has spent more than $900,000 fighting the road.
She added that it was good to have support there from Royal Palm Beach Vice Mayor Richard Valuntas and Councilman Jeff Hmara, as well as County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay and Wellington Councilwoman Anne Gerwig, MPO alternate to Councilman Matt Willhite, who came to lend support.
I am curious. Why is it no one has questioned,,, Why is the City of West Palm Beach so welcoming to the “proposed” spring training facility?
When that proposed facility, will be constructed on a former city landfill that was shut down by the state. Due to toxic heavy metal contamination in the soil and surface water.
Even though that proposed site,,, will impact an area larger in size then the proposed site of the S.R. #7 extension and “abuts” the M-Canal,,,the main canal that feeds the cities water supply,,, And is closer in proximity to the city water treatment plant, then the proposed S.R. #7 extension.
It has been proposed by the minds that what be. The environmental clean up of the spring training facility site. Will cost an estimated $20 million dollars. But yet. There are no concerns from the city about any threats to the city water supply from that heavy metal contamination, entering the city water supply, with surface water cross lateral flow, during construction. Just why is that?
While the city presents its side of the debate being the threat to the city water supply, as the justification for ending the S.R. # 7 extension. No one has thought to bring up the conflicts of ideologies of the two proposed construction projects.
It seems to me. The cities lack of concerns over the honest threats to their water supply by the proposed spring training facility. Versus the “imagined” threats of the proposed extension of S.R. #7. Should be considered a hypocritical stand point by the city, and should be brought into the lime light by the proponents for the completion of the S.R. #7 extension.
Just my two cents worth.
Danny Wallace.
The Acreage.