Letter: Don’t let developers kill Amendment 4

 January 21, 2010  

We moved back to Florida because we remembered the beautiful abundance of our home state’s natural resources. Florida remains a wonderful friend to those of us who enjoy its beaches, parks, rivers, canals, springs, fishing holes and estuaries, but not for long if some developers have their way next November.

Some Floridians are working hard to preserve what’s left of our state’s natural resources, like the all-volunteer group from "Hometown Democracy". They have convinced me to vote yes on Amendment 4 in November, because (as they explain) when we don’t protect these resources, we pay a very steep price.

Take water, for example. In south Florida, the destruction of wetlands through developers’ (and their political friends’) appetite for growth has cost them their watersheds. Pavement has replaced wetlands, with their necessary ecological and water filtration systems. As the Everglades watershed recedes, developers and their friends have raised loud voices for deeper drilling in the Florida aquifer, reverse osmosis and desalination.

These "solutions" are all expensive to implement, six to eight times the cost of a natural water supply, according to John Arthur Marshall in the Sept. 19 Palm Beach Daily News. He suggests that we can grow our natural water supply by restoring our watersheds, as New York City did in the Catskills.

State rules mandate planning for new water sources when 80 percent usage of available water is reached. The 2008 MOR Supply Use report informed me that last year, my own Atlantic Beach community had reached 65.3 percent of available water supply usage (an average of 2.39 million gallons a day), and a neighboring community, Jacksonville Beach, had used 70.88 percent of available water. All of Duval County used 63.25 percent, or 124.46 million gallons per day.

Watering our lawns only on Saturdays or Sundays might help temporarily, but until we stop allowing over-development in Florida, the problem will soon worsen and become more costly to fix.

Vote for Amendment 4 next November so that citizens can have a voice (their votes) when developers want to make a change to their district or county’s comprehensive land use plan, the state-mandated, locally administered guideline for development that guides our zoning laws. In court cases that involve land use, courts must adhere to the rules and regulations of these plans. Developers will do all they can to kill Amendment 4 before the election. Remember our water. Don’t let them.

Diana Townsend, Atlantic Beach