Editor’s note: The following letter is in response to the editorial “Judge’s Ruling Should End The Decades-Long Debate Over SR 7,” published last week.
In your last editorial, you accused West Palm Beach of crocodile tears because of their concerns about the potential impacts of the State Road 7 on drinking water in the Grassy Waters Preserve.
Contrary to your unsubstantiated statement, I’m a “nearby resident” who owns a home in Royal Palm Beach, and we don’t know anyone who supports the extension. You seem to base a lot of your build-the-road logic on past planning decisions but, haven’t you noticed? There have been an awful lot of bad ones. Growing up in Florida, I see past bad decisions play out every day and want to be really explicit: Florida is in a bad drought (as usual), is one of the few aquifer states (without major rivers), is extremely susceptible to salt water intrusion (into the aquifer) and, locally, we all see the daily impacts of bad water (like the Lake Worth Lagoon).
In a major panel discussion at the Hudson Institute that has appeared in many places over the last few years, the top experts in potential human disasters debated which was the most pressing danger for all of us: a pandemic, war, artificial intelligence, financial collapse, a solar system hit or rapidly diminishing potable drinking water. After the debate, they voted and, guess what? They chose dwindling freshwater water quality and supply as the most pressing issue! However, several of us “nearby residents” have come up with the perfect solution that would probably get a unanimous consensus on the State Road 7 extension. Why don’t we pipe the Grassy Waters drinking water that will be closest to the road directly into the homes of the judges, editors, politicians and developers that want the road so badly?
Kerry Dawson, Royal Palm Beach
