Florida Cabinet, DeSantis clear way for Miami-Dade’s highway through Everglades wetlands

Rejecting a judge’s recommendation, Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Florida Cabinet cleared the way for Miami-Dade County’s plans to build a highway through wetlands meant to help preserve the Everglades and the county’s drinking water supply. Environmentalists vowed to fight the decision.

The item, listed without details on the cabinet’s public agenda, came up in the last few minutes of a meeting Tuesday and was quickly approved by DeSantis, Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and Attorney General Ashley Moody. Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who has announced she will run for governor herself, was the only no vote, arguing the controversial project will be harmful to the environment.

“You’re siding with developers in favor of harming Everglades restoration, risking wildlife, agricultural lands and Miami-Dade’s water supply, not really reducing urban sprawl,” she said during the meeting.

Plans for the $1 billion Kendall Parkway, a 13-mile extension to State Road 836 touted as a solution for congestion in the county’s western suburbs, were the subject of a fierce legal challenge by environmentalists and community activists who argued that the project violated Miami-Dade’s comprehensive development plan and provided only small improvements in commute times.

After Miami-Dade commissioners approved the project in 2018, Tropical Audubon Society filed a lawsuit in October arguing the project would breach the county’s Urban Development Boundary, which was created to shield the Everglades from dense suburban subdivisions and commercial complexes.

Hearings for the legal challenge in 2019 revealed that traffic relief would amount to just six minutes on a typical two-hour round-trip commute from West Kendall to downtown Miami. In March last year, Suzanne Van Wyck, an administrative law judge for Florida, recommended that DeSantis and the state Cabinet reject Miami-Dade’s application to change development rules allowing for the construction of the toll road. She cited uncertain impacts on Everglades preservation and “meager” improvements of traffic congestion.

In a meeting in June the state Board of Administration, the governor, Patronis and Moody rejected Van Wyck’s ruling, giving Miami-Dade the green light to seek environmental permits from state agencies. At the time, DeSantis said it was “premature” to assume that the project would be approved. He also said he didn’t think the project would be approved by the South Florida Water Management District.

The Tuesday vote formally reversed the judge’s order and allows the county to seek permits from state agencies. Miami-Dade would need a permit from the Department of Environmental Protection to build on wetlands, for instance.

Environmentalists said at the time that the decision ran counter to the governor’s efforts to restore the Everglades and Biscayne Bay, both dependent on a plentiful supply of fresh, clean water. They also say the highway would destroy wetlands that help replenish Miami-Dade’s underground drinking water supply and open the door to more suburban sprawl.

Paola Ferreira, executive director at Tropical Audubon, one of the groups that challenged the county’s plans, said advocates intend to appeal the Cabinet’s decision.

“We believe that their interpretation of the law is incorrect,” she said. By allowing the county to build infrastructure outside of the Urban Development Boundary, the state could be creating a “dangerous precedent,” she added.

Richard Grosso, an attorney representing Tropical Audubon Society and West Kendall resident Michelle Garcia in the legal action, called the Cabinet’s order “atrocious.”

“It bends over backwards in trying to allow the highway and in doing so undermines the essence of the CDMP,” he said, referring to the county’s development plan. He said the order interprets the master plan in a way that may weaken it going forward.

The wetlands, formally known as the Bird Drive Basin, is a rare empty swath of land critical to replenishing the shallow aquifer that supplies the county’s drinking water. It’s also home to native animals, wading birds and rare plants. The basin is also part of ongoing Everglades restoration and is part of the 2000 plan to move more water south to marshes damaged by flood control.