ENVIRONMENT

Corridor benefits from Orlando wetland impacts

Dinah Voyles Pulver
dpulver@gatehousemedia.com
Property owned by the Kemcho Investment Group on State Road 44. Parcels on the interior portion of the property, south of this frontage, are being donated to the St. Johns River Water Management District as mitigation for construction projects in Orlando.. [News-Journal/Dinah Voyles Pulver]

A swath of conservation lands through Volusia County is getting a little addition thanks to a series of agreements that will protect property off State Road 44 east of DeLand in exchange for wetlands impacted by construction projects elsewhere in Central Florida.

The St. Johns River Water Management District has approved permits that call for at least 400 acres of undeveloped timberland known as Kemcho, on the south side of State Road 44 and adjacent to other conservation lands, to be donated to the district by J. Acquisitions LLC., a corporation helping arrange wetland mitigation for construction projects.

One 86-acre donation, approved this month, is mitigation in exchange for wetlands impacted by the expansion of a parking business near Orlando International Airport, Park, Bark & Fly. The business and its owners were recently fined $200,000 for a second time by the district for illegally dredging and filling in wetlands without a permit.

Although local environmental advocates are happy to see land added to the Volusia Flagler Conservation Corridor after a long hiatus, they’re skeptical of the agreement reached between the district and Park, Bark & Fly, and its consultants. That’s because they question how the mitigation for wetland destruction can take place more than 30 miles away, and also because the consulting company working for the Park, Bark & Fly business and arranging the mitigation was Bio-Tech Consulting, whose president John Miklos has drawn controversy as the chairman of the water district’s governing board.

Former Volusia County councilwoman Pat Northey, a corridor advocate, is one of those with mixed feelings about the mitigation projects.

“There’s always value when we add land to the corridor, but you have to wonder about it all,” she said, “whether that increase in the corridor offsets the wetland destruction in the other area.”

For example, she questioned how mitigation in Volusia County could make up for the wetland damage at the airport parking business more than 30 miles away.

“Mitigated lands should be close to and similar to what they (Park, Bark & Fly) tore up and violated,” Northey said. “I think there’s probably appropriate times and places for mitigation but I think it’s an abused developer’s tool.”

Miklos did not respond to an email seeking comment about the additions to the Conservation Corridor. He hasn’t responded to requests for comments from The News-Journal since a series of stories in 2016 about his role in a controversial proposal by the city of DeBary to acquire conservation land from the water district for a development around the SunRail station.

An investigator for the state ethics commission found probable cause that Miklos violated state ethics rules in the case, but the ethics commission cleared Miklos after voting to drop the investigation.

Miklos, serving an unprecedented fifth one-year term as the board's chairman, was reappointed to a four-year term on the board by Gov. Rick Scott in March 2014. His board term technically expired in March, but board members previously have continued to serve without being officially reappointed. A news release by Bio-Tech consulting when Miklos was re-elected chairman last fall stated that he would serve as board chairman until November 2018.

A spokeswoman in Gov. Scott's office, Ashley Cook, stated in an email that the seat held by Miklos "is open and anyone is welcome to apply."

Key link in corridor

The Kemcho property has long been identified as a key link in the Volusia Flagler Conservation Corridor, a Florida Forever project. The corridor, a mix of publicly owned lands and private lands under conservation easement, stretches more than 30 miles from the St. Johns River near Osteen to the heart of Flagler County and the Ocala National Forest. The corridor is a part of a much larger corridor environmental advocates hope to conserve between the Everglades and the Okefenokee Swamp on the Florida-Georgia state line.

The water district bought 3,200 acres of the Kemcho land in 2012, and had an option on the remaining 1,509 acres. However, the district never exercised its option for the second, eastern part of the property. Now that property is being offered up as mitigation.

The property’s owners are working with J Acquisitions, the limited liability corporation owned by an Orlando developer and construction company owners, and Bio-Tech, to sell the land for wetland mitigation. Some 300 acres of the property will be donated to the district as mitigation for All Aboard Florida’s Brightline passenger train service between Orlando and Miami. Bio-Tech also is working as a consultant to All Aboard Florida. Two other smaller projects also have listed Kemcho land as mitigation. In total so far, at least 400 acres of Kemcho has been promised to the district.

The Kemcho mitigation land abuts 3,200 acres of district-owned land, district officials stated in a report about the mitigation, and Volusia County’s 4,800-acre Deep Creek Preserve. District officials state the Kemcho land will provide nesting, denning and breeding habitat for wetland dependent species and will be managed to improve habitat.

Volusia County has managed the district’s share of the Kemcho lands since the 2012 purchase. However Monson, the district’s spokeswoman, said the district plans to take over management of the existing conservation lands and the new mitigation lands.

The district asked the county about managing the additional lands, said Tim Baylie, the county’s parks director. However, Volusia declined to take on the additional responsibility unless additional money was offered to help pay for the management, he said. “We would be interested in managing it (the addition) in the same way we manage the preserve, but there needs to be some funding.”

Illegal wetland activities

Park, Bark & Fly has a long and complex legal history with the water district. The company illegally cleared and filled wetlands between 2004 and 2006. After wrangling with the company for years, the district approved a final order in 2012 requiring the company to either obtain an after the fact permit or restore the cleared and filled wetlands to the pre-violation condition

District records show the company declined to comply and continued operating the parking business until the district went to court and obtained a judgment in 2016.

The company hired Bio-Tech Consulting and applied for its after-the-fact permit in 2016 and applied to dredge and fill another 25 acres of wetlands. While reviewing that permit, the district settled with the parking business and required it to pay a $200,000 penalty. That settlement agreement was signed by the various owners on Jan. 18 and Jan. 22 of this year. A permit for the after-the-fact wetlands work and the new wetland destruction was issued on Jan. 23.

But then, district staff visited for a site inspection on Jan. 31 and were refused access, district records show. The parking company referred the district to the consultants. A letter written by the district’s compliance coordinator Bill Carlie states the district contacted several representatives of the consulting firm but was not granted access to the Park Bark & Fly site for an inspection until Feb. 12.

On Feb. 9, Bio-Tech notified the district it would no longer be working for Park Bark & Fly, Monson stated, although a Feb. 22 letter to the business was copied to Bio-Tech. A subsequent district investigation concluded the company had begun construction activities in the wetlands in 2017, impacting an estimated 5.76 acres of wetlands without authorization from the district. An agreement approved in April requires the company to pay a second $200,000 penalty, in 12 monthly payments of $16,666.67.

Feb. 2 Letter from William Carlie, SJRWMD compliance coordinator, to Park Bark & Fly