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Getting closer to cleaning the Miami River
Miami Herald (1/16/99)
Kathleen Krog - editorial board
No better way to begin the year than by revisiting that perennial
problem: cleaning up the Miami River. "I will continue to
do my part to trim the beard off this issue, " said Terry
Murphy after reading in my profile on Monday's Otherviews Page
that the first Herald editorial I wrote in 1984 was about cleaning
up the Miami River. As I'm still writing about it, I said this
is a subject that has been around so long it has grown a beard.
Chances of trimming that beard - getting the river dredged
of its toxic sediments, which would be a boon for Biscayne Bay,
too - look more realistic than ever. That's because the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers this year offered to pay 80 percent of
the dredging costs if the local community produces 20 percent.
That's a very good deal.
"Other governments would create a project just to get
a deal like that," said Richard Bunnell, another Monday
caller. Bunnell, who owns a marine construction business, co-chairs
the dredging subcommittee of the Miami River Commission. The
commission is the latest incarnation of various appointed groups
that have wrestled with river issues. Many of its 22 members
have business interests linked to the river's fate and naturally
are big boosters for dredging and other improvements. It should
also be noted that some may gain directly by winning bids to
do the work.
That said, these commission members mostly come from a cadre
of disparate players - from the marine industry, Miami and Miami-Dade
County officials, the Corps, state and federal agencies' representatives,
riverside residents - doggedly committed for almost 20 years
to the same goal: cleaning up the river.
Another constant is the county's Department of Environmental
Resource Management. DERM directors came and went, but DERM's
involvement in river issues never wavered.
In times when the appointed groups charged with finding solutions
lacked leadership or direction, DERM was still plugging away,
lobbying for a viable federal cost-sharing formula in Washington,
D.C. and addressing myriad environmental hurdles. Now that the
funding formula is in place, the Corps requires a local sponsor
to pony up from $13 million to $20 million in nonfederal dollars.
An estimated $7 million of that is to buy land to store and
dry dredged sediments before they're disposed of or reused.
Last month, the river commission asked the County Commission
to designate the county as the local sponsor for the dredging
project and direct the county manager to find the matching funds.
After a contentious discussion, the commission agreed, with
the caveat that Miami and the state also provide a share of the
funding.
Thorny issues always have subtexts. There is a hostility
between county commissioners and the river commission that must
be smoothed over if this project is going to become reality.
Everyone wants the same thing here - at least everyone who
grasps the significance of the river to the local economy (approximately
$8 billion annually) and to the quality of life along its banks.
Several funding options are on the table. The state Department
of Transportation is going to buy a lot of land off the Miami
Intermodal Center. The DOT and the county are talking about
allowing some of those tracts to be used to store the sediment.
The dredging project will take five years; sediment could be
stored on sties that the DOT won't be ready to use for many more
years.
That would take care of about $7 million of the local contribution.
My would-be beard-trimmer Terry Murphy, chief of staff for County
Commissioner Natacha Millan, suggests there are other efforts
afloat to find the remaining millions, including talk of seeking
voter approval for a temporary property tax. A tenth of a mill
hike countywide would generate about $9 million a year.
That would be a though sell, but it's worth hard discussion.
In truth the Corps won't be prepared to offer the local agreement
for signing for many months. The sediment site has to be identified,
then the Corps has to obtain a state water-quality permit.
This timetable doesn't jeopardize the federal money - about
$5 million - appropriated this year for the river from another
local project that has been deferred, Port of Miami dredging.
If the Corps ends up using the $5 million for something else
besides the river this year, it will replace it. Once.
So there is time - some - to sort out the funding dilemma
before the federal clock starts ticking. But keep those razor
strops handy. This beard has got to go, soon.
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