Monroe County Mayor Jim Scholl joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
Sea level rise continues to be an issue in the county and was a topic of discussion at a recent county commission meeting.
Scholl said, “It was very lengthy discussion and in fact, Tuesday evening, we had a special commission meeting to discuss the StillWright Point project that was still in the planning phases, but what has happened over the years, I mean, these issues have been there for over five years, and the county has been working diligently, not only our staff, but with contractors, to come up with solutions for the king tide flooding in these neighborhoods. Right now, primarily in the Key Largo area, is the first major king tide flooding issues we’ve had over the last several years. So we do have a project that is well underway in Twin Lakes neighborhood up there, and that was our pilot project to see what it would take not just raising the road itself, but all of the collateral issues that have to be taken into account due to regulations, federal regulations and state regulations regarding environment and it’s primarily stormwater rules, which is a little bit confusing, but if we raise the road and cause water to run off a road, it has to be captured, treated for pollutants, and then discharged in a clean state back into, in this case, the ocean. So that becomes very expensive to design a system that can do all of that while elevating the road, which is the goal, so that the roads don’t flood. Because right now, in these neighborhoods, they won’t come down the roads to pick up trash, they won’t deliver mail. I’m pretty sure if there was a major fire or something, we would sacrifice firefighting vehicles to drive through salt water to handle that, but it’s a problem, and it’s a recurring problem that happens in the fall and winter.”
Twin Lakes is the first project of this nature.
Scholl said, “What we did is said, for the pilot project, we were going to fund the capital cost and that determination was made long time ago and the grant funds got applied for based on the project design. By the time we got funded, the cost of the project that had escalated significantly. Then, in addition to the capital cost, there is an operations and maintenance cost to manage the system, and it has pumps that pump this flood water out of the areas of the roads and then through injection wells or outfall back into the environment once it’s cleaned. But that has to be maintained. So right now, the assessment that was approved for Twin Lakes, and we call it a municipal services benefit unit, is going to be approximately $2,000 a year, initially per household per lot to cover the cost of the operations and maintenance. Of course, that wasn’t very well received, but that’s just the realities of having a complex system like that.”
StillWright Point was supposed to be the next project.
Scholl explained, “The rights of way in there are very narrow. So in order for us to elevate the road, we would have to have adjacent easements on all of the properties, in order to do the harmonization from the elevation of the road for driveways and property, and then also to have space to put the underground collection system and pipes to be able to transfer it through the pumps and then back either in an injection well or to an outfall well. When we had a workshop, gosh, a month ago or so, maybe a couple months, the residents weren’t happy about the easements, and in order to even start the project, we would have to have 100% agreement and easement signed, and they said they won’t do it. So the project as it was designed is now moot. I mean, we’re not going to be able to do it because we can’t install the necessary infrastructure to make it work. So the compromise for this, and we’ll see how this works, but we will just do basic road maintenance, and we’ll elevate it a couple of inches and get closer to the original design level, because the roads have been receding, sinking to some degree, and that’s just because of the limestone base and the higher water table has effects on all of that. So we agreed we’re going to see if we can find the funds to at least level and pave the roads, and again, add a little bit of elevation, but it’s not going to stop the king tide flooding and then the neighborhood can decide on what they would like to do to go forward, but they adamantly said they didn’t want the project as designed, and especially since we would also be seeking capital funding to offset the shortfall there, and of course, then an operations and maintenance, recurring, annual cost. So it’s difficult, but that’s where we are right now is, is we’re going to finish the Twin Lakes project and then regroup and see what would be possible will be going forward, considering the government regulations that have to be adhered to that make these projects very expensive and very complex. The only one that we’re going to complete the design on is StillWright Point because that’s part of the grant funding. It’s a phase of it, so we need to complete that, but that will go on the shelf.”
Are there any state or federal mandates for road elevation?
Scholl said, “It’s not a requirement at all, but obviously it’s health, safety and welfare issues, so it has to be considered. But at some point, you don’t like to make too far into the future predictions, because obviously Mother Nature can change things. But right now, at the rate of sea level rise that, obviously is impacting low lying areas, it’s going to be a challenge to keep the roads from flooding significantly, and it’s really difficult down here, because obviously the king tides is way different than heavy rains. I mean, that’s coming from the ocean. It’s not coming from the sky. Rain water systems are much easier to deal with than trying to fight the ever rising ocean. So at some point the low lying neighborhoods will flood to the point where they won’t be accessible. Of course the neighborhoods will slowly go away, depending on the properties and the actual level of the ground under the houses and everything. Once it’s flooded permanently, there’s not going to be normal access.”
Other ways to do these projects with residents was discussed.
Scholl said, “Having assessments through these municipal service benefit units is quite common nationwide. I think the one that we have in the Keys that most people know about is Marathon, with the hospital up there. That’s a municipal services benefit unit here in the Keys that that the residents of Marathon pay taxes for to have that obviously necessary resource there in Marathon.”
Height limits for homes was also discussed.
Scholl said, “We gave staff direction to go ahead and prepare the appropriate changes in the documents, and then we would send those up to Tallahassee for review that’s required under our area of critical state concern. But again, this really is directly related to the sea level rise issue. You want to be able to build a house that has the base flood elevation, or the design flood elevation above what would flood and we changed the code for the city years ago to be able to add additional height to the floor. Your bottom floor needs to be a certain height above flood just avoid having flood damage. So when you raise the floor, you got to be able to raise the roof too or you have to shrink the ceiling, and that’s not good. So we allowed an additional five feet in Key West and the height limits up and down the Keys are quite different, depending on the government entity that controls it, but 42 feet certainly seems reasonable for new construction or for reconstruction, all up and down the Keys. Here in Key West in the neighborhoods, you see housing, whole houses being elevated. They’ve got structural engineers and contractors that can put great big beams under the entire house and jack it up, and some of them five feet, and that certainly provides protection from flooding. Of course, if there’s any elevation, the flooding usually comes from major, major rainfall events. Obviously the Ocean King tide thing is another issue, but elevating homes to protect them just makes sense in the direction that our environment is impacting homes that are on the ground.”
What will happen with FEMA?
Scholl said, “As far as major storm type disasters or wildfires or earthquakes, there’s all kinds of disasters that can happen, but obviously the ones that impact us are hurricanes, but FEMA looks to be if they don’t eliminate it, decentralizing disaster response is certainly at the top of their list, and having states and local governments be more financially responsible, They’re certainly talking about raising the thresholds for potential disaster relief from the federal government. The thresholds used to be relatively low for the state of Florida. It used to come up to about $43 million to be eligible, $43 million worth of damage to be eligible for federal disaster declaration and relief. But the initial proposal now is up to $7.56 from $1.89 per capita statewide, which would raise the threshold up to about $175 million in damage before there could be any federal government support and the percentage of cost share will change to make the states and local governments have a higher percentage of disaster recovery costs and then have historically been there, so it could be significant. And of course, the state is already increasing their fund balance, their excess funds, to be able to have that on hand to help recovery and I’ve had the conversation with the County Administrator and the budget director to say, we need to mirror that. We need to increase our reserves in order to be able to deal with the disasters, as should all the municipalities, if we’re going to be responsible for a higher percentage of recovery, should we meet the threshold for federal disaster relief, or, just as importantly, if we don’t? So we’ve got to be able to do disaster recovery, obviously, because economically, everybody depends on that. We owe it to our constituents, the residents and the visitors, but we need to be able to do disaster recovery so we can get everything back to normal as soon as possible.”
Captain Beth Regoli has retired as commander of NAS in Key West. Captain Jason Ingram of the US Coast Guard is also retiring, as is Captain Dave Dupree from the FWC.
Scholl said, “Beth did a great job for the years she was here. Now, Captain Colin Thompson took her place, and he hit the ground running. He seems like he’s going to be another great CO of the base. And Captain Josh Empen is taking over for Jason, and Dave Dupree, Adam garrison was selected to take his position. So we always hate to see the people go that have been here, that have had such a great impact on our communities down here, but having done 28 years in the military, I know everybody comes and goes, and we’re always very impressed with the newcomers and their ability to come in, step in and just continue with the same quality as their predecessor. So looking forward to meeting Josh today, I have not met him, so that will be good. I hear nothing but good things.”
County Commissioner Michelle Lincoln will be in Orlando next week for the Florida Association of Counties major annual meeting.
Scholl said, “Commissioner Lincoln will be installed as the president of the Florida Association of Counties, representing all 67 counties in the state of Florida and coordinating issues that are very important to county government with our our state representatives and the governor, and it’s a very important job, and and she will, she will be superb at being in that position. So we were looking forward to her officially taking over next Friday up there. And I know it’ll be a great year for all the counties in Florida.”
With the conflict in the Middle East, what could the future hold?
Scholl said, “I don’t know that I have any expectations, but just having been in that part of the world quite a bit over my Navy career, the last time that I was there flying was Desert Storm. So that was a while ago. But I can tell you just fundamentally that every sovereign nation has a right to protect itself, its borders and its people, and in this case, there’s clearly a bad actor, a nation that that uses a lot of proxies to try to extend their influence, and certainly in the Middle East and that part of the world, and it affects the entire world and the world’s economy, but when you have any nation state that vows to eliminate other nation states or ethnicities or whatever, that’s just unacceptable and there’s going to be consequences, and the level of those consequences are yet to be seen. But I certainly agree with most of the world’s leaders that a nuclear weapon powered Iran is unacceptable. It will play out over the next several weeks. Obviously, there’s a lot of saber rattling back and forth, but I don’t know that Iran has much of a saber. Hopefully there’ll be a lot of diplomatic resources working on this and seeing if they can convince the leader of Iran that it’s not in his best interest. Of course, we hear statistics that 75% of the Iranian people are in total disagreement with the leadership of the government, but they’re not allowed to say that. But that’s just something that we hear, so yes, it’s a dictatorship type regime over there, and it’s not serving its own nation well, and it’s certainly becoming a nation of one against the rest of the world, I guess, not very good. Israel has very sophisticated resources available to them. But what is really impressive is that their strikes are surgical and they’re military targets. They’re not doing barrage attacks against civilians. It’s military targets, and I know that’s the proper way to use military force. You don’t target civilians. I know a hospital was hit in Israel a day or two ago and, and that’s just really not the way to in today’s world anyway, with precision munitions and everything, not the way to conduct warfare.”