submitted by Albert Gomez

miamiherald.com - by Julie Dick - December 14, 2015

Miami-Dade County leaders have a number of decisions to make in the coming days, months and years that will define how we prepare for a changing Miami. If unsustainable developments are approved and move forward — be it a landfill expansion, a highway running through the Everglades ecosystem or new commercial and industrial development in currently undeveloped low-lying areas — they will create future liabilities and sprawling urban areas that will require expensive, though not necessarily effective, flood control. This will put the region’s water resources at risk.

On Tuesday, the County Commission is scheduled to consider whether to approve an application from the Neighborhood Planning Company for an industrial and commercial development on more than 60 acres of agricultural land and wetlands outside of the Urban Development Boundary (UDB).

The development would sit entirely on top of the West Wellfield Protection Area, in which certain land uses and activities are regulated or prohibited to protect the potable water supply from contamination and to provide recharge of the aquifer. Industrial development on this site puts our drinking-water supply at risk. This proposal should not move forward.