Rhonda Haag, Chief Resilience Officer for Monroe County, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about what’s going on in the county.
There are a number of projects underway right now.
Haag said, “We’re under active construction. And they’re, let me tell you, they’re going to town. So we have two breakwaters under construction, actually Duck Key breakwater repair, that’s also a living shoreline. That’s a two and a half million dollar grant funded project. They’re rebuilding almost the entire breakwater up there at Duck Key. And since we’re on such a tight timeframe, they literally have about till the end of June, and the grant cuts off, because these are limited time availability funds. So they’re out there working seven days a week to rebuild that breakwater. So I have to give them a hand. That’s LPS construction out of Marathon, doing that work. And that’s also part of that is going to be a living shoreline, so it’s not just a hardened shoreline. They’re also going to be some plantings out there to help break those waves in the event of a hurricane. And hopefully we won’t ever be rebuilding that again. But we did find out an interesting fact. We found some bids from 25 years ago when that breakwater was rebuilt. Those bids back then were two and a half million dollars. And here we are, 25 years later, building that same breakwater for the same amount of money. It’s unbelievable. So big shout out to LPS, and if people want to see something active, they can even go on the weekend out there and take a look at it. It’s very interesting work to be seen. It has to be done June 30. We have to have the engineer plans done, the construction done, and my report has to be in and so that’s why they’re out there working seven days a week. And we’re very thankful for that. Vendors, though, I put all the thanks on them. They’re just doing a bang out job.”
A living shoreline is also being constructed at the Long Key transfer station.
Haag said, “They’re building what’s called wave attenuation devices. They look like mini spaceships. They’re shaped like this, a triangle with holes in the middle. And there’s going to be 480 of them out there. And so they’re out there working seven days a week, also Toppino’s is supplying the concrete out there for them. Seeing shoreline is the vendor building the project, but they’re out there going like heck too, to build these living shorelines. And I could really see this living shoreline, especially when you see them, because they’re concrete and they have holes in them. So when the hurricane storm shore hits against that thing, against the concrete structures, it breaks the waves. But it’s not like sandbags, where plantings aren’t able to live there. So hopefully this will be really popular, and I could see this being built up and down the shorelines of the Keys so we can not only have wave attenuation stoppage, but also still contain the native planning. Some really cool work there. So take a look.”
Rock Harbor breakwater is also under repair.
Haag said, “That’s not a living shoreline. That’s really just a repair of the breakwater, but that’s a million dollar grant funded project also in the Rock Harbor neighborhood in Key Largo, of course, in the ocean. And then we have some active community outreach for 200 million dollars worth of grant funded road elevation projects. So last evening, we met with the Winston Waterways folks, some of them. So when we build these higher roads, we’re looking at building them about two and a quarter feet higher than what they are now. So when you build the roads higher, you have to build them a little bit wider, also, because you can’t have these drop offs. And so when we’re building them wider, and some of these neighborhoods, we need to use a bit of the private property, the front yards, just like five or 10 feet, to either put in a swale or one of those structures, like a grate where the water goes in, it’s called an inlet structure, but really it’s like a metal grate that you put on top, and then you build culverts underneath that collect and gather the water and take it away from the roads. And so we’re meeting with the Big Coppitt folks tonight for those whom we need an easement from. The county requires an easement from those properties where we need to either put a swale or these concrete grates, these people will still be able to use the property, but we need to be able to use them. So about 10% of the properties in both of those neighborhoods, Winston, and Big Coppitt that we’re going to meet with tonight, we need easements from them to put the swales in and the inlet structures. And so when we’re talking about, I know we heard a lot last night from the folks who say, well, our roads aren’t all flooding, it’s only some of the roads, and it’s only for a little period of time. But what we want people to understand is the reason we jumped out in front of the whole rest of the state is to be able to get these grant level of funds. I mean, $200 million is a massive amount of grant funds that we have sitting available, ready to use for these projects. We’re going to be having more community meetings with the Big Coppitt neighborhood, also with all of them, not just the folks that we need the easement from to talk about, because the roads are going to continue to get more and more flooded every year, as the sea levels continue to rise, the under the groundwater rises also. Then when you get that rainwater on the road, or the tidal floods are going to continue to rise, and so there’s going to be more and more problems with drainage every year as the time goes by. So we know people don’t like easements. There will be, I mean, easements, there will be an assessment for these projects, , to fund the operations and maintenance. And nobody likes assessments. And I completely understand that we’re trying to make them as minimal as possible so that they are affordable. And we’ll be talking about that with both communities again, but these are going to protect the home values for the next 30 years, because these projects are building for the next 30 years, and so they won’t be flooded or have flooding on the roads, and that’s going to protect their home values and make it easy for them to get to their homes anytime of the year. That’s what these projects are all about.”
The community needs to approve the participation, right?
Haag said, “What has to happen is we meet with their neighborhoods like we’re meeting again tonight. We’ll have formal votes with these neighborhoods. We’ll be sending out letters and having meetings, and they’re going to get a chance to formally conduct a vote, whether they want it or not. But these grant funds are on reserve, and FEMA has to conduct what’s known as a cost benefit analysis, and we’re going to be submitting the plans near the end of May, so very short coming up. And what they’re going to do then is they conduct what’s called the cost benefit analysis, so they look at all the benefits that these neighbors get in terms of resilience and things like that, and then they look at the cost and it can take anywhere from two to six months, maybe even more, because these are really big projects. And so they come back to us and they say, we passed that hurdle. Okay, neighborhoods. You’ve passed it. Then we can put it out for bids, and then we’ll know exactly how much it costs. We hope we have it 100% grant funded. We won’t know until we put the actual bids out, and then we come back to the neighborhoods and say, okay, we’ve got the go ahead to spend this money, and now it’s your turn to vote on whether you want it. And if they vote yes, we move forward with the projects. Set up an assessment and fund operations and maintenance. If they vote no, any of these neighborhoods, we have to give back those grant funds. Unfortunately, we’re not able to hang on to them. It’s a very limited time frame, because if we don’t use it, other communities will. I know there’s already communities that heard about this, they’re waiting to see what we’re going to do, but these grant funds go back to FEMA and the state if we don’t use them.”
Where will people be able to find out the times and dates of any other upcoming community meetings?
Haag said, “We post everything on our county calendar. You can just go right to the county calendar and don’t forget, Flagler is down there. We’re not having any meetings on Flagler. That’s a little bit different situation where we’re working with the city, but we have 54 million for Flagler Avenue. But yeah, just go to the county website, type in Big Coppitt or Winston, and we post the meeting notices there, and we’ll be sending out letters also to the community residents who are in the actual area for our next meeting, so we can make sure everybody’s aware of them.”
Road elevation is important.
Haag said, “Just over the last 10 years, I’ve seen just massive amounts of additional water on the road, all over the place, Key Largo, all the way down to Key West. It’s just that tidal flooding. It creeps in every year. But it’s not by fractions of inches. It’s inches and inches. And when you have to start driving through six or eight or 10 inches of water for a month or two or three at a time. Even when that gets very frustrating, it ruins your automobiles. I mean, we don’t want to see that. So if we do these projects, you’re not going to see that. You’re not going to see that on any of these community roads. And so we’re hoping that people take advantage of the opportunity, like I said. I know nobody likes assessments, but it will protect your home value. It’s going to protect your car. You’re going to be able to drive whenever you wanted to get to your home. And that’s a big deal. It’s a big deal.”