Quest to reopen Midnight Pass hits snag

SARASOTA COUNTY - The $15 million plan to reopen Midnight Pass is getting tough reviews from federal regulators, most notably from a permits chief with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers who equates the complex project with the building of the Panama Canal.

"It sure is grandiose and expensive and appears to be good masters or PhD thesis material," the Corps' Mike Nowicki wrote in an e-mail to an official at the National Marine Fisheries Service, which is also reviewing the project.

"It is time to drop the hammer on this project and DENY it for both of us," Nowicki wrote in an October e-mail to a top Florida Department of Environmental Protection official.

Past attempts to reopen the pass have drawn state and federal opposition. The last rejection came in 1991, when Nowicki, among others, recommended it be denied. The Corps is one of four federal regulatory agencies that have concerns about this latest effort to reopen the pass.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is also objecting to the project. In a Nov. 4 letter, a commission official wrote "the ecological impacts associated with the project outweigh any potential benefits; therefore, we cannot support issuance of a permit for this project as proposed."

County officials expressed surprise at the vehemence of Nowicki's e-mails on Wednesday, but were still optimistic about eventually getting a permit.

County Administrator Jim Ley noted that his staff has worked successfully with Nowicki on past projects and found him to be fair.

"I think that it's unfortunate that kind of dialogue has to go on in e-mails or in letters that we sort of find out of context, but we're not going to react to it too directly right now," he said.

Even if state and federal agencies approve the project, it is unclear where the county will find the money to pay for it.

Midnight Pass has been a hot-button local issue since 1983, when artist Syd Solomon and a neighbor bulldozed the shallow channel closed to save their homes. Boaters and residents in the Midnight Pass Society have helped keep the issue alive both as a Siesta Key area cause and a factor in local politics.

Nowicki's e-mails bolster arguments made by pass opponents, which include environmentalists and homeowners on Casey Key, who feel their beaches have grown since the pass closed.

"He's the reviewer," Tallahassee attorney Ken Oertel, who represents North Casey Key Homeowners, said of Nowicki. "I've never seen much stronger language than in his e-mail."

In light of the correspondence between state and federal regulators, Oertel called the county's effort to reopen the pass hopeless.

In one e-mail, Nowicki questioned the need for the project: "It exhibits to me the same old problem, let's destroy the existing ecosystem that has reached equilibrium over the last 25 years and replace with one that is different but not necessarily better and monitor it for 3-15 years."

The Corps declined comment except to say that it was reviewing Sarasota County's application and its attempt to address concerns by the EPA and the fisheries service.

As for Nowicki's comments, the agency issued a statement: "The Corps does not comment on statements made by employees in e-mails concerning the application process."

Nowicki has also made supportive comments about the Midnight Pass project in the past, said Karyn Erickson, the coastal engineer the county signed to a $910,000 contract to manage the application process, now in its fourth year.

This is what federal officials do when a huge application comes across their desks, Erickson said.

"They whine and complain a lot and try to find a way out of reviewing the project," she said.

Erickson disputes Nowicki's comments about the county not addressing the various concerns.

The county has sent in detailed information about how the project will not only reopen the pass, but will create a 400-acre managed area where invasive species like Australian pines will be replaced with mangroves, and fish nurseries will thrive in man-made lagoons.

Reopening the pass will also improve how Little Sarasota Bay flushes into the Gulf of Mexico, Erickson said. She estimates clearer, less polluted water will encourage the growth of 86 acres of seagrass, which in turn will be the home for juvenile fish.

State officials have already agreed that the shorter trip through a reopened pass would lessen the number of times manatees suffer propeller strikes, she added.

When it comes to asking permission from regulators, "the default position is always no," said Bob Waechter, president of the Midnight Pass Society, which has long lobbied to reopen the pass.

Last year's South Siesta Key renourishment was delayed for several years by regulators who said it should not be done, Waechter noted. "Renourishment was a project that couldn't happen, then there was a trip to Washington and all the questions got answered," he said. "There were insurmountable obstacles and then they all got surmounted."