With hearings completed on one major limerock mine in Lee County, another proposed mine, a few miles away, will be getting increasing attention, as a new mining hearing begins this month.
King Ranch, the Texas based agribusiness giant, will now wait for Lee County's Hearing Examiner to issue a recommendation on its plan for a 1,840 acre mine at Old Corkscrew Plantation between Corkscrew Road and State Road 82. Hearing Examiner Donna Marie Collins will send her report to the Board of County Commissioners who will make the ultimate decision on that mine.
Hearings begin June 26 on the second proposed mine at the Troyer Brothers Florida Inc. potato farm and processing facility, a short distance away from the Old Corkscrew site. That mine would produce 3.4 million tons of rock per year over a 35-year lifespan.
Public town meetings on the Troyer Brothers proposal held last week in two disparate Lee County neighborhoods brought out residents with similar reactions, expressed differently, to more mining in an area of the southeast county that is already home to more than 12,000 acres of approved and active mines.
In the Gateway neighborhood in east Fort Myers, with curving roads adorned with lush medians and home prices reaching in to the seven figures, residents gave voice to their fears in polite, measured tones in a country club dining room.
Directly across SR 82 is Lehigh Acres whose residents attended a forum Thursday in a room at the local recreation center. Residents of the community of nearly 100 square miles, 1,400 miles of narrow roads built in a tightly formatted grid, and few homes priced at more than $300,000, were more blunt and showed more exasperation over the mining proposal.
The words and tone of residents differed, but the sentiment was the same.
"It will decrease out quality of life," Lehigh resident Joanna Higgins said.
The sessions were organized by a public relations form hired by Sakata Seeds America Inc., which occupies land that is side by with the Troyer Bros. land. In addition to hiring Priority Marketing of Fort Myers, Sakata has hired experts to testify before the hearing examiner.
Randy Johnson, branch manager for the Sakata research station in Lehigh, says the company is pursuing the battle against the mine to protect its ongoing agriculture business against the effects of blasting, digging, washing and trucking.
Troyer Brothers will try to prove it can do all of that without harm to the neighborhood, but Sakata doesn't want to take the risk if it doesn't work.
"We're not mobile, we can't pick up and leave," Johnson said.
Sakata's decision to hire experts to counter presentations by a team of specialists brought in by Troyer Brothers is vital to its stand against the rock mine.
Florida land use decisions are guided by state Supreme Court rulings that require competent substantial evidence to back zoning decisions. That usually means finding someone who can be qualified as an expert in such areas as planning, engineering, water quality, traffic and blowing stuff up, each an integral part of the siting and operation of a rock mine.
Both sides have their PR specialists; Troyer Brothers is using the Fort Myers firm Gravina, Smith, Matte & Arnold.
The two mines are following different paths to a decision by the county commission. Old Corkscrew Plantation is using rules in effect in 2007, the result of a successful lawsuit to overturn an earlier denial. The Troyer permit falls under current regulations. Its previous application was killed by county commissioners in 2011.
Sakata's effort to stop the mine includes significant grass roots organizing. Greg Stuart the planner who leads the town meeting sessions, stresses to residents the importance of speaking during the Hearing Examiner proceedings in order to preserve their right to speak before county commissioners.
At each town meeting, packets were handed out with copies of the hearing examiner's procedures and a public participation form that can be used to sign up to speak when the hearing gets around to public comment. It includes a primer on what the hearing examiner is required to consider when considering a mine application.
One key requirement is that the mining activity "not create or cause adverse effects from dust, noise, lighting or odor."
The county staff has recommended that the mining permit be granted, although with some condition. The report states that the mine proposal meets the requirement of the land code and "will not adversely affect environmentally critical or sensitive areas" and is appropriate use of the land off of SR 82,
Staff members say they can recommend the mine because changes in regulations since 2011 make it acceptable now.
The application states that access to the project is only from SR 82 and not from frontage on Corkscrew Road. Lehigh residents reacted strongly on being told that there are no plans to install a traffic light at the intersection of the Troyer Brothers property and 82. Several residents complained that trucks taking a left turn out of the Troyer land would pose a serious safety hazard.
In preparing to render a recommendation the to commission, Collins has asked King Ranch to have its witnesses provide additional information about things such as to provide additional information about such issues as the manner in which the mine operator would have trucks queue up for weighing and the timing of truck trips.