26 Aug We can find a way to stop the state’s parks proposal

By Karen Marcus
Guest Columnist
The Palm Beach Post

On the evening of Aug. 19, my phone blew up. Texts, calls, emails – all asking, “How can the Florida Department of Environmental Protection put three golf courses in Jonathan Dickinson State Park?” “How can this happen to public lands?” “How can we stop this?”

By Tuesday morning, there was a justifiable and energetic public outcry. We at Sustainable Palm Beach County share the outrage. It’s inconceivable that the FDEP proposes to take 10% of the Park’s 10,500 acres of environmentally sensitive lands and turn them into two 18-hole and one nine-hole golf courses, as if 188 courses in Palm Beach and Martin County aren’t enough.

We hope that public pressure will halt the plan, just as it did in 2011 when a similar scheme was abandoned after public outcry.

But we also urge the public to ensure that policy makers to do the work required to protect conservation lands in perpetuity. Public lands are owned collectively by U.S. citizens and managed by government agencies. But more work is required to ensure that these lands are preserved forever.

The work is not quick and not always easy. It involves adding extra layers of protection, most often through third-party conservation easements.

A conservation easement is a voluntary, legal agreement that protects the natural resources of a parcel of land by restricting future land use and/or development on the property “in perpetuity” — that is to say, permanently. This agreement is held between a landowner and a third party, which is often another governmental agency or a land trust for the purpose of ensuring the protection of the land forever. The easement is recorded with the property’s deed and transfers to all future landowners.

A good example is MacArthur Beach State Park. When the MacArthur family gave it to the State, it held the conservation easement, ensuring that no development could happen without its approval. Eventually, the conservation easement was transferred to the Village of North Palm Beach. Nothing can happen to the popular Mac Beach Park without the approval of the Council of the Village of North Palm Beach.

Should the FDEP decide not to proceed with three golf courses in this patch of rare Florida scrub, containing the headwaters of the Federally Designated Wild and Scenic Loxahatchee River, we propose that a reputable third party such as a land trust become engaged to place extra layers of protection on JD Park. We shouldn’t have to fight this battle a third time.

There is a silver lining to my phone blowing up. It’s strong evidence of a robust group emerging in Florida that I call “everyday environmentalists.” Perhaps you are one of them.

You may not carry the card or wear the T-shirt of any environmental organization, and you may not be involved in a group working to preserve Florida’s assets. But through text, emails, and phone calls, and by buttonholing those of us in the “environmental” community in the post office, in Publix, on the sidewalk or the soccer field, you are asking, “How can the state do this?”

You care deeply about South Florida’s natural beauty. For natives it’s a homegrown love. For newcomers, it’s often a quality-of-life choice that drew you here and that keeps you here. We want to preserve what we cherish so that our kids and grandkids can continue to enjoy it. Working with our policymakers, let’s find a way to protect JB Park forever.

Karen Marcus is founder and president, Sustainable PBC. A Republican, she served as Palm Beach County Commissioner from 1984 to 2012.