UPDATED: Bellmar and Kingston Developments Thwarted

Permits for controversial developments in Collier and Lee counties were thwarted Friday as a federal judge ruled that flawed environmental processes violate the Endangered Species Act. The decision will revert 404 wetland permitting processes from the state back to the feds, potentially affecting developments throughout the state since 2020 and into the future. The two developments named in the case were Bellmar in eastern Collier County and Kingston in Lee County. 

“These developments would have been a death knell for the Florida panther,” said Michael McGrath, Sierra Club lead organizer.

U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) violated federal law when they allowed Florida to take over the Clean Water Act wetlands permitting program in 2020, the Sierra Club senior organizing manager Cris Costello announced in a press release on Friday.

“No state can be allowed to take over a federal program as important as the Clean Water Act’s wetlands permitting program by making an end-run around the Endangered Species Act,” Costello wrote.

Not only does this ruling mean that Florida cannot issue the permits for Bellmar and Kingston developments, but also the deferral of federal 404 permitting to the state is reverted back to the Army Corps of Engineers, said Florida Director for the Center for Biological Diversity and senior attorney Elise Pautler Bennett.

“The court’s ruling is a reprieve for Florida’s most endangered species like the Florida panther, but we’ll never prevent the extinction of our most vulnerable wildlife unless we stop bulldozing the wild places where they live. The Endangered Species Act can save these magnificent creatures, but only if our agencies follow the law,” Bennett said.

The projects threatened to dismantle the wildlife corridor, killing as many as 24 panthers per year as biologists estimate there are approximately 200 panthers remaining, most of them in South Florida.

The legal challenge to the Clean Water Act 404 permitting process was first launched in 2021 by several environmental groups. Groups and environmental leaders warned that state oversight would be weaker than federal oversight. The 404 permit is for discharging dredge or fill material into waterways. 

Then, on December 4, 2023, Earthjustice, a legal team on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity and Sierra Club, filed a motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction in federal court to prevent state issuance of 404 wetland permits for Bellmar and Kingston Villages.

Bellmar Village was proposed as more than 5,000 acres off Golden Gate Boulevard East, and Kingston Village was proposed as a development on 6,676 acres of land on Corkscrew Road in Lee County. 

The motion claimed the projects would cause irreparable harm to the endangered Florida panther and to the threatened Audubon crested caracara, as well as harm to other species. The Audubon crested caracara is a large species of raptor that has been nesting at Bellmar in recent years as well as in Kingston. 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, coordinating with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, also estimated that Bellmar Village would “adversely affect” bonneted and tricolored bats, among other species, in their September 18 letter to Florida Department of Environmental Protection, recommending the permit approval.

FWS biologist Adam Knutson suggested approval of the 404 permit with some stipulations for the protection of species, including building wildlife crossings, removing exotic plant species, and preserving approximately half of the 5,000 acre Bellmar project area, among other provisions.

To mitigate the impacts the discharges would have on approximately 144 acres of wetlands, Collier Enterprises Management, the developer and landowner that is now part of the Tarpon Blue Family of Companies, was to conserve about half of the land that was to be Bellmar Village or approximately 2,570 acres of it, said Jonathan Guinn, an environmental specialist with DEP.

These projects are among several large developments planned in the wetland areas and panther habitat of eastern Collier and Lee counties, near the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge. The projects combined would dismantle the Florida Wildlife Corridor and together would likely cause the rapid extinction of the Florida panther, officials warned. They already garnered county government approval. 

Collier County’s planned projects are a part of a larger development to include the Town of Big Cypress covering approximately 12,000 acres and more than 8,000 homes east of Naples between Golden Gate Estates and Ave Maria, nearing Immokalee. Together, these developments in eastern Collier County would be more than twice the size of nearby Ave Maria. 

Together, the Bellmar and Kingston projects would destroy thousands of acres of panther habitat and result in the “take” of eight to 27 panthers a year, Earthjustice stated in the court filing. The projects would then result in the “take” of at least six to 25 panthers per year thereafter. In this context, “take” means to kill.

The permit exempts the developers from any consequences of a “take,” according to FWS’s letter recommending Bellmar’s permit approval in September 2023. 

Allowing state versus federal overseeing of the permitting process was a gift to developers, McGrath said. 

The Sierra Club, the Conservancy of Southwest Florida and numerous other environmental groups rallied together to change the course of these and other developments. 

These groups are committed to finding ways to manage the influx of people and manage growth while being stewards that protect environmentally sensitive wetlands and the species that live in the state. 

“We’re trying to make sure we safeguard Florida,” McGrath said. 

More is expected to come from the case as officials from both sides reviewed the judge’s findings in more detail following the release on Friday. Link here. https://earthjustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/show_temp-9.pdf.