Dear Esteroan:

               For the last two years the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) has been leading an effort in conjunction with the mining industry to take away County control of aggregate mining permitting and operations. Last year they successfully passed legislation limiting “moratoriums” on such mining permits to one year and set up a Task Force to study the issue. Since then the Task Force spent hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of tax dollars to fulfill their mandate. They made thirteen (13) sound Consensus Recommendation about how to plan for the future supply of aggregate in a way that would protect the environment, our sources of water, the neighbors and the roads that the mine trucks travel.

Instead of developing and passing such legislation the Florida legislature is considering legislation that would limit the ability of County governments to permit and regulate mining and its community impacts.

As a result of last year’s action the Lee County Board approved a one year moratorium on September 11, 2007 and allocated $1.4 million for a master plan of the 90,000 acres just east of I-75, called the Density Reduction/Groundwater Resource (DR/GR) area. The adoption of that plan is essential for the future welfare of all of Estero. That is where we get our water; most of the water that comes down our rivers and streams and into Estero Bay comes from that area…development of this area could lead to flooding problems and contamination of Estero Bay and a decline in its function as an estuary for fish and wildlife…and much of it is important wildlife habitat.

Probably our greatest concern is the six (6) pending mine applications and several others that are pending but have not been filed due to the moratorium that collectively would add over 10,000 acres to eleven existing mines in the DR/GR area. All of this material is transported by truck….can you imagine what that would do to our quality of life…the safety of our roads; the quality of our air; the dirt and noise on our streets.

We must do everything we can to prevent this.

We are asking all Esteroans to send an e-mail to Governor Charlie Crist asking him to use his influence to get the legislature to stop bowing to the mining industry and their proposals for a State take-over of aggregate mining and to push them to enact all of the Consensus Recommendation of the Strategic Aggregate Review Task Force.

This will not be the end of our efforts….it is just the beginning…the legislators will be meeting for four (4) more weeks so a lot of hearings and votes will be occurring in a very short time period. Thus, we will be asking you to send a number of e-mails during this short period.

Please help us help you by going to the following web site each time we ask you to send an e-mail (you can modify each of them if you like).

Thank You for your help,

Don Eslick
Estero Council of Community Leaders (ECCL)

To send an e-mail to Governor Crist (with copies to key Representatives and Senators) go to:

               WWW.BROOKSCONCERNEDCITIZENS.COM

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