Habitat issues may derail sewers

By Steve Estes

District Two County Commissioner George Neugent is looking for answers to questions he believes might drastically change the county’s direction on central wastewater collection, at least for Big Pine and No Name Keys.

Right now, much of Big Pine is included in the county’s proposed expanded Cudjoe Regional wastewater system. That system purports to stretch from Lower Sugarloaf Key to Big Pine Key and be served from a single treatment plant on Blimp Road in Cudjoe Key.

No Name Key currently is not included in the expanded regional central collection system, though some residents there have been asking for nearly three years that they be added to that system. At one time, those residents were voted into the central system by the Board of County Commissioners but were voted back out again later.

Who’s in and who’s out aside, Neugent thinks the county faces a bigger issue in regard to central collection infrastructure on Big Pine Key, and that issue surrounds potential mitigation costs to run pipes and lift stations through some of the most environmentally sensitive lands in the Florida Keys.

Monroe County and the state Departments of Community Affairs and Transportation several years ago made a deal with the US Fish and Wildlife Service and negotiated a Habitat Conservation Plan. The plan is designed to ensure that endangered species that call Big Pine and No Name Keys home don’t disappear in our lifetimes. The plan, through an Incidental Take Permit, limits human development on the two islands over the next 20 years to a maximum of 1.1 H or habitat loss. In return, the county must purchase or otherwise set aside lands for conservation that are worth three times that amount.

Before the Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority puts a single pipe in the ground for central collection systems on the two islands, however, Neugent thinks it’s important to find out what the federal agency is going to demand in the form of mitigation.

“The issue first came up last year when we were having a conversation with USFWS folks about No Name Key and the possible extension of electricity. They made the comment to me that if the lines and poles remained in scarified right-of-way, they may have few requirements. But they said they needed a plan, both for electricity and for future sewer lines,” said Neugent. “And then they told us that they haven’t yet seen a plan for Big Pine for sewer lines.”

The FKAA is about 60 percent complete with its general design plans for the Cudjoe regional system, but as yet doesn’t have a detailed plan for pipes and stations on Big Pine.

“USFWS will need that plan before they can render any opinion on possible mitigation,” said Neugent. “And until they render an opinion, we don’t know if we can proceed.”

The county has used about .75 of its allowable 1.1 H to date. If the habitat loss requirements for central sewer lines exceeds the remaining .35, the county won’t be able to run a complete system.

The ITP allows for 200 new homes over a 20-year period, of which about 140 remain. Every point value of H the county uses for sewers will eat into the total allowed and decrease the other development that can take place between now and the end of the HCP cycle in 2025.

Central sewer lines were not originally built into the H calculations for the HCP/ITP.

“We may do all this work, spend all this money, only to discover that we don’t have the financial ability to mitigate,” said Neugent.

Mitigation is usually accomplished by purchasing additional lands for perpetual conservation. And that land has to be in the area covered by the HCP, Big Pine and No Name Key. Various governmental agencies already own more than 65 percent of the total land mass of those two islands, and it takes willing sellers for all agencies to purchase more. Willing sellers have become more scarce in recent years.

“We may not have enough land to buy to satisfy mitigation,” said Neugent. “And we as a commission might not be willing to block all other development to install central wastewater systems on Big Pine.”

The state Legislature is expected to give Monroe County an extra five years to meet state mandates on wastewater treatment. The original goal was July 1, 2010, but that deadline won’t be met and the county is expected to get a five year extension during the upcoming Legislative session.

“That gives us some time to get these questions answered, but we have to get started,” said Neugent.