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 will be four new projects beginning in February.
Haag said, “My favorite part of my job is when we actually do the actual projects. We have two of our longest ones, our Tavernier breakwater repair, that’s about to start here in February. That’s a 1,500 foot breakwater repair. Our local vendor is ready to start, and we’re really excited about that one. It’s been almost three years we’ve been waiting for that $1.6 million grant. So that’s something the community doesn’t have to pay for. And of course, that will provide resilience to the community once that breakwater is repaired, stop that storm surge from coming in. Then we have another one in Rock Harbor that’s about 500 feet of breakwater repair. Another local vendor, is doing that one. That’s a $1.1 million federal grant that’s paying for that one. We hope to be underway by February, also for those two. So those are our two breakwater repair projects.”
The Long Key living shoreline will be discussed.
Haag said, “This is the first living shoreline the county has done. I don’t think, I’m not aware of anywhere else, at least in government, that has done any living shorelines yet in the Keys, maybe some private entities have. So that’s a $750,000 project that’s up by our Long Key transfer station. It’s kind of low out there on the back end. So what we’re doing is we’re putting in what’s called these, we have to build them, concrete wave attenuation devices. And there’s these concrete structures that you pour out there, and they have some holes in and you put them out in the water, and when the waves lap up to that, it breaks the wave action from hitting the shore. So that’s what’s called a living shoreline. Of course, we do some native planting out there also. So I’m really excited about that one.”
There is a living shoreline and breakwater repair at Duck Key as well.
Haag said, “That’s a big project. They have about 10,000 feet of breakwater to repair. That’s going to be a $2.6 million project. Those two, the Long Key and Duck Key both have to be completed by June 30. So we were going to have to really run fast to get those completed on time, because the federal funds run out. So four big projects. We’ve been waiting for two years, three, almost three for a couple of them, and they’re ready to hit the road here in the next 30 days or so.”
There will be meetings in February about possible road elevation projects.
Haag said, “The Winston Waterways neighborhood in Key Largo, and also the Big Coppitt neighborhood in the Lower Keys. We’re moving forward with our public meetings. We’re meeting with both of those neighborhoods in February. It’s on the county website. It’s a public meeting you can attend, either in person or virtually. We want as many people to attend as possible. And this is what we’re going to tell them about the project. We have a lot of grant funding, I think 50 million on the one and 60 or 70 million on Big Coppitt. We wanted to keep those projects moving. Those designs are scheduled to be done in May of this year, and so want to ensure the neighborhood is engaged and willing to move forward on those projects. We’ve got the construction funds waiting there, so hopefully the neighborhood will agree to move forward on this. There will be an assessment for the operations and maintenance. So we need to get a vote on that from the residents to move forward on those two big projects. But that will keep those neighborhood roads clear of water for the next 25, 30 years. So they will be really resilient neighborhoods.”
Canal funding also came in recently.
Haag said, “We got $7 million from Tallahassee from the Stewardship fund. And so we’ve got three projects. I’m just sending them in today so we can get the grant document back and get going with those. It’s going to be a couple in the Lower Keys and one in the Upper Keys.”
The MSBU (Municipal Service Benefit Unit) ordinance that was scheduled for a public hearing today was delayed a bit.
Haag said, “We’re not quite ready to pass that. We will be back in February commission, or maybe March at the latest, with the actual ordinance. There’s a lot of details to work out on that. We’ve already had probably a handful of people already call me interested in different types of projects. A couple were canal projects, and one was just a single road adaptation project. So definitely an interest in that ordinance and how we can move forward with some smaller projects.”