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| Peggy Apgar’Schmidt Monday, June 09, 2003 Editor, This letter is in response to your Sunday editorial “Re-examine the DR/GR plan” in which you asked for updated science to determine if existing groundwater guidelines meet the county’s needs, but somehow determine that we should keep “hands off” on mining. Yes, mining is currently a permitted use in the DRGR, but where is the science that supports this? According to the documentation for the 1990 Lee Plan amendments mining was allowed in the DRGR because it already existed when the DRGR first came into being, not because any science supported its inclusion. The science to which you refer in your editorial “the original plan for those important lands was found to be legally sound then and based on good science” does not have one single reference to mining. Read it. It mentions the harmful effects of impervious surfaces. (Impervious surfaces stop groundwater from recharging the aquifer.) It mentions that groundwater recharge in the DRGR area ranges as high as 10 inches per year as opposed to other areas of Lee County with the high end of the recharge range at 3 inches per year. But it doesn’t purport to study the effects of mining. Currently Lee County doesn’t know the effects of mining in the DRGR. You are suggesting we remain ignorant. Why do you argue against looking at science on mining? Is there something to hide? If you look at current science you will find that recharge is reduced 50% or more by the huge pits that mines all over Florida are creating. Is this what we are afraid of facing? That we may have permitted thousands of acres to mining that actually compete with our DRGR well fields and make a mockery of calling this area groundwater recharge? Perhaps, we’ll find what the USGS (United States Geological Survey) is finding in Miami: our wellfield cones of influence modeling and 30-day transit times are very wrong, significantly increasing our vulnerability to introducing protozoa such as “cryptosporidium” (which breed in the rock quarries) into our potable water supply. And for what? Your editorial claims that “the plan should not be delayed… mining is essential to the growth of Lee County… with significant impacts on residents who should not have to wait two more years for relief.” Exactly which residents are waiting for what? Where did you come up with 2 more years? On what facts are you basing this opinion? Lee County has currently permitted over 70 years of limerock reserves, not counting the large Florida Rock #2 mine now under attack from the National Wildlife Federation for taking Florida Panther habitat. If someone is waiting for rock it because 1) they don’t want to buy it at the price for which it’s offered, 2) the rock is already being shipped out of Lee County under contracts made with local rock pits, 3) they are a company from another part of Florida who wants to outbid our local companies for highway projects and they can’t get the rock they need locally to make a low project bid, or 4) they want to control their own supply chain. (They want to own the rock pit and the concrete/asphalt plants and the highway construction companies). “The plan” to which you so blithely refer includes some excellent provisions for improving monitoring, reclamation and performance standards. Unfortunately it also includes adding more land off East Corkscrew Road for mining as “presumed compatible” in an area with long-standing rural residences as well as people who moved here because the 1990 “mining map” (overlay 14 of the Lee Plan) designates mining areas to be off Alico Road, NOT on Corkscrew Road. By your blanket endorsement of “the plan” are you suggesting that the county buy all of us out? Are you suggesting that we live with floors, ceilings, porches and foundations that are cracking because of blasting? If you think living in a blast zone is ok, why not include other residential areas in Lee County that have built over limerock? Is there something about being a rural residential landowner that makes our rights and quality of life less important? You are suggesting that we sacrifice the fragile ecosystem in SE Lee County and the homes of the people who live there to the God of “rock company politics”. At $165,000 net profit per rock mined acre there are going to be a lot of “rock company politics”. In the end, if the complete science picture indicates Lee County permitted mines which are detrimental to the DRGR, we’ll discover that we made a mistake. We did so in good faith, with the State’s 1990 blessing for the Lee Plan. However, to endorse additional lands for mining and exempt mining from an impartial scientific review is bad faith. Lee County deserves better. Reconsider your blanket endorsement of the proposed changes to the Land Development Code which the BoCC will judge at public hearings on June 10 and June 24th. Get the facts. Put one of those great investigative reporters to work digging up accurate data. Support the residents of Estero and the East Corkscrew Road Rural Community (www.corkscrewroad.com). Regards, Peggy Apgar’Schmidt P_apgarschmidt@yahoo.com
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