Regarding last week’s letter by Mr. Dennis Hawkins concerning the sale of the Mecca property (“Don’t Sell Mecca Farms To SFWMD”), my mother always told me that if I can’t say anything good, I should say nothing at all. Sorry, mom.
The letter mentioned above is so — oh, well — off-the-wall and uniformed that it actually doesn’t deserve further — oops — any mention. On the other hand, the sale of the Mecca property to the South Florida Water Management District, with the plans that we, in attendance at the county commission’s vote review, is excellent.
Water retention, nutrient reduction, flood protection, the Loxahatchee Slough and River, etc., will all benefit, and the taxpayers of Palm Beach County are off the hook for further upkeep and associated debts. The fill to be removed is already being studied by the county’s Environmental Resources Management department for use in capping and filling the muck layers in the Lake Worth Lagoon. So it appears that the writer of the letter in the June 7 issue has looked only myopically at a small bit of the big picture (oops, sorry again, mom).
Bill Louda, Loxahatchee Groves
Need we be reminded that the county spent $100 million dollars on this “good idea” and now has agreed to sell it for a $74 million dollar loss? As for the environment, the State purchased multiple thousands of acres of land in Palm Beach County from U.S. Sugar for twice what the land was appraised for, yet it has no money to make the improvements that would be required to make that land environmentally friendly.
These are the facts that you left out of your letter.