If the Seminole Improvement District was to carry through with the recent suggestion it could cut off access to the M-2 Canal, the results could be catastrophic for Acreage residents, Indian Trail Improvement District President Elizabeth Accomando said this week.
“The thought that [SID] would even consider cutting off the drainage, especially at this time of year, is just terrible,” Accomando said.
Hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. A typical hurricane can drop between 6 and 12 inches of rain along its path, and some far exceed that amount, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The M-2 Canal is a 5.5-mile-long drainage channel that runs north to south through SID’s property and the City of Westlake, beginning near 60th Street North and terminating at Southern Blvd. and the C-51 Canal. It drains much of ITID’s western side.
Many areas of ITID are prone to street and yard flooding even during non-hurricane rain events.
Cutting off access for properties that drain into the M-2 “is irresponsible and, in our opinion, will expose SID to numerous and substantial claims in the event flooding occurs to affected properties,” ITID’s law firm Caldwell Pacetti Edwards Schoech & Viator wrote in a July 10 letter to SID Manager Kenneth Cassel.
Cassel said that SID has been attempting to discuss a drainage permitting issue with ITID since February and has been ignored.
“I think we finally got their attention,” he said this week.
However, ITID Executive Director Burgess Hanson said this particular issue is about much more than a drainage permit.
In May 2024, Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Richard Oftedal ruled against SID and Minto Communities USA in their suit to gain access to ITID roads for Minto’s Westlake development. The ruling is on appeal.
Hanson believes that the alleged permitting issue is an attempt to strong-arm ITID on the roads issue.
“We will not be bullied or harassed for protecting all of our infrastructure in an attempt to force a one-sided settlement, so SID and Minto can gain free and uncontrolled connection to our roads,” he said.
Accomando agreed.
“It appears to be a retaliatory effort, even though [SID] claims they want to work together as neighbors,” she said. “This isn’t very neighborly in my opinion.”
Bernard Lebedeker, ITID’s attorney for the roads issue, added, “Minto and SID’s decision to perpetuate the dispute they lost in court by threatening to potentially flood our residents is both amoral and illegal.”
Cassel denied that there is any subtext related to the drainage issue. The concern is about unpermitted ITID drainage pipes on SID property. “They’re two completely separate issues,” Cassel said.
Accomando noted that the drainage rights in question predate the current ownership.
“There are historical rights, backed up with documents, that allow the M-2 drainage to occur,” Accomando said.
Under an earlier agreement that predates SID’s ownership of the canal land, “It is well documented that when SID purchased that land, those rights were to continue,” Accomando said.
Hanson said he hopes to find a path forward on the issue.
“ITID staff’s goal is always open to collaborate with a reasonable, mutually beneficial path forward — one that prioritizes the well-being and safety of all residents,” he said.
ITID Supervisor Betty Argue believes that there will be a resolution to the drainage issue.
“I don’t believe they have any right to block us off,” Argue said Wednesday. “I think ultimately, [SID] will do the right thing.”
But if SID persists, “we look forward to vindicating the interest of our landowners through the judicial process, if necessary,” Lebedeker said.
