PALM BEACH and TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Sept. 20, 2004 (PRIMEZONE) -- Placing a development the size of downtown West Palm Beach immediately beside the Everglades is wrong says a group of statewide nonprofit advocacy organizations. With a public hearing to grant zoning approvals for the Scripps Project looming, 1000 Friends of Florida, Florida Wildlife Federation, Audubon of Florida, and the Environmental and Land Use Law Center, repeated their opposition to this site.
The group continues to support action by the Palm Beach County Commission regarding two alternate sites for the Scripps Biomedical Research Park. While opposed to development of the Mecca Farms site, the groups remain ready to support in principle either of the two alternate sites. Scripps Trustees, the Governor, and Legislative leadership have been urged by this coalition to relocate the Scripps Florida facility to one of the alternative sites to avoid costly and time consuming litigation. The groups also welcomed the critical support of the Towns of Palm Beach Gardens and Jupiter in endorsing one of the alternatives.
Arguing that site location was not as critical to Scripps as was having sufficient space to accommodate its immediate and future expansion needs, 1000 Friends of Florida Executive Director Charles Pattison asked, "Why go to a site that threatens the Everglades, costs the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars for new infrastructure, and forever changes the quality of life for the surrounding community when viable alternatives are available?" Manley Fuller, with Florida Wildlife Federation agrees, saying "To put a project the size of downtown West Palm Beach right beside the Everglades is just not right from an environmental or land use perspective".
Site problems include sprawl, negative impacts to ongoing Everglades and the Loxahatchee River restoration efforts, impacts to neighboring conservation lands and rural communities, infrastructure costs, and secondary and cumulative impacts of the adjacent development that would locate on the borders of this site. The group also says the Mecca Farms site is a less desirable location for Scripps due to its extreme isolation and significant distance from the coast and its associated cultural amenities. Opposition to Mecca Farms site continues to be significant, and could affect future phases of the Research Park, possibly resulting in even further isolation for Scripps' scientists.
Most of the substantive planning, land use, environmental, infrastructure and community character issues raised by this group have been similarly identified by two key review agencies, the Florida Department of Community Affairs and the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council. Richard Grosso, Executive Director of the Environmental and Land Use Law Center, agrees. "The proposed site represents one of the worst, if not the worst, abuses of the 1985 Growth Management Act, the law that is supposed to prevent environmentally damaging and sprawl inducing projects, from happening".
In addition, The Everglades Coalition, a federation of 44 nongovernmental organizations working to promote Everglades restoration and its viability as a world renowned ecosystem, recently adopted a resolution opposing the location of Scripps on Mecca Farms due to the negative impacts it would pose to this critical restoration effort. Jamie Furgang, representing Audubon of Florida, agrees, noting that "Locating the Scripps project at the proposed location has the long term potential for undermining all the hard work to date that has gone into the $8 Billion plus Everglades restoration effort."
The coalition says it is fully prepared to support the reasonable development of either of the alternative sites to accommodate Scripps stated requirements, and strongly believes that the selection of an alternate site better meets its needs and allows Scripps to be welcomed to Palm Beach County as a true benefit to the community, as it rightly should be. The bottom line is that support for the project is there, but not at any cost, and certainly not at the Mecca Farms site.