Miami-Dade County commissioners postponed voting on a lease deal Wednesday that would have potentially cleared the way for a controversial water park near rare pine rockland at Zoo Miami.
After listening to about two hours of comments from opponents to the plan, Commissioner Kionne McGhee asked to defer the vote until Sept. 19.
The delay, McGhee said, was related to a lawsuit filed in February filed after federal officials admitted not completing wildlife studies assessing potential damage to endangered species caused by building the water park near land inhabited by endangered Florida bonneted bats, the Miami tiger beetle and a host of other rare species. Those studies were needed to lift deed restrictions on the land.
To resolve the court case, county attorneys suggested amending the lease to give federal officials time to finish the studies.
READ MORE: Zoo Miami water park has a new outspoken critic: the zoo's longtime spokesman
Opponents, however, say commissioners should kill the deal. Last week, zoo spokesman Ron Magill blasted the project. On Wednesday, residents and conservationists filled the commission chambers and repeatedly asked commissioners to find a better location.
“It's another county boondoggle gifting the developer $13.5 million for a project that harms no less than four federally endangered species and further degrades a globally endangered habitat,” said Joe Barros, president of Tropical Audubon, one of the plaintiffs in the federal case.
The pine rockland around the zoo is the largest tract of the rare forest outside Everglades National Park. As part of a rock ridge that provides rare high ground in swampy South Florida, it was mostly paved over for development. Less than 3% remains, making it a globally impaired forest filled with increasingly rare plants and animals. The largest documented population of endangered Florida bonneted bats uses the parking lot as its main feeding grounds.
“We have a roomful of opposition to development. What does that say to the value of our voices if we are disregarded?” said Bailey Raymond, a student at Florida International University who volunteered at the zoo in high school. “In a world facing a climate crisis, environmental conservation is no longer a want. It is a necessity.”
But developer Paul Lambert said describing the area targeted for the water park as sensitive is absurd.
“The fact that some groups opposing the project keep calling the paved parking areas at the zoo environmentally sensitive is bizarre and absurd,” he told commissioners. “This is not a binary choice between the water park and conservation and enhancing the habitat. You can do both.”
Assessing impacts to protected species before allowing development on sensitive land is required under federal willdlife laws and happens regularly. The additional restrictions on the zoo pineland requiring it be used for parks was put in place in the 1970s when the government gave the land to the county. Those needed to be lifted to allow the water park deal. It's not clear why they were not.
“It’s outrageous,” said Elise Bennett, an attorney with the Center for Biological Conservation representing Tropical Audubon, Bats International and the Miami Blue chapter of the North American Butterfly Association. “This is incredibly unique because of just how many species are going to be impacted. I can’t think of another case with at least 10 [protected] species in a habitat.”
Federal wildlife officials would not comment on why the studies were not completed. Miami-Dade county attorneys also declined to comment.
In a June meeting with the judge overseeing the case, Bennett said the conservation groups and county had agreed to resolve the case by rescinding the lease deal altogether.
But according to Bennett, Miami-Dade went back on the agreement. Instead of a resolution to cancel the lease, as the plaintiffs say they expected, county commissioners were presented with a resolution that simply amended the lease with an extension to give federal officials time to complete the studies.
"It appears these new lease terms would reinvigorate an agreement that kind of appeared dead," Bennett said.
It also means the legal fight will likely continue.
"As things stand now," she said, "nothing is resolved."
